House Of Leaves
by honeyblood
Summary: [Part 1: Naruto-centric, spoilers upto chapter 244, AU] The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.
1. Preface: May Michael Be at My Right Hand

**Title:** House of Leaves

**Rating:** PG-R (-ish. Always with the 'ish,' what is it with me?)

**Disclaimer:** Nothing, nothing; I have nothing.

**Warnings:** Spoilers upto chapter 244, only with _differences_. The prologue is styled after the opening in the wonderful _Fall on your Knees_ by Ann-Marie MacDonald so keep that in mind while reading and going, what the hell? Um, also, while this part doesn't get into it, there will be creepiness and violence in abundance later on.

**Foreword:** Also appears on my LiveJournal, and much prettier because FFdotNET hates me.

**Summary:** The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.

* * *

**Preface: May Michael Be at My Right Hand (1)**

* * *

You want to hear a story, the story. It's not so surprising, really, because you were part of it and you deserve to know.

You deserve to know what happened to them, what happened to the restless golden-haired boy and the surly fucked-up prodigy and the relentless green-eyed girl. You want to find out if the little green man got his happy ending. You want to find out about the one-eyed man, because you never really knew enough about him. You want to learn about all of them; every person that was involved.

You want to find out where they all ended up, and if it was everything that they'd thought it would be because you know that expectations are made to be broken.

Well, they are dead now. All of them; dead and buried and rotting in the ground.

* * *

This is the woman. She doesn't feel the death blow. It slides into her skin with the soundlessness and intimacy of a kiss, and in the midst of her fight she does not feel it.

Yet.

Minutes later, she feels something press on the inside of her skull, and then there is nothing. She doesn't feel the floor rise up to catch her. And she doesn't hear her companion's furious roar. She certainly doesn't feel the kunai sliding between her second and third vertebra, just to make sure.

She is the last of them, and with her dies the last person to know the story first hand.

* * *

Naruto is face up on the ground with a gapping hole in his belly. His innards spill pinkly on the ground while his face is twists with a snarl of disbelief and his hands poise to reach—though what he is reaching for is anyone's guess. His eyes are blue and wide, still, and his hair is a golden mess. Blood pools around him, ruby and visceral, and he is dead. Dead, dead, _dead_. But don't worry; he isn't left behind. At the last minute, as he is known to do, Kakashi comes to get him. He picks him up like a bundle of sticks and carries him back to the town he was born in. In many ways, this second death is harder, the hardest. Naruto is buried next to the Fourth Hokage and the city weeps.

* * *

This is the picture of Sasuke that she will carry to her death.

Black haired and black eyed he leaps from the hospital window like a bird flying its cage. In her mind's eye he is caught forever in the tangerine glow of the dying sun with his arms out-stretched. His hair is long and it floats as he falls.

His sharp descent plasters the thin, green hospital shirt to his lean chest, tenting out behind him like crippled wings.

* * *

In the shadows of the city wall Lee stands and waits. He is taller now than any of his peers, and he still dresses in green; homage to the man that inspired him. He stands for a moment, waiting for the call.

There; a whistle.

He shoots into the woods like an arrow from a bow, swift and sure and does not miss his mark.

* * *

(The baby doesn't live long enough to get a name you see, but they were planning on calling him Naruto. She wanted to call him that because she would have loved him—she would have loved him so much. But there was a problem and there was bleeding and Naruto never really got a chance. She doesn't think it's fitting for a shinobi to cry, but in this case she damns them all to hell and weeps the tears that she wouldn't before.)

* * *

Here is the man. He sits in the northwest corner of the room, dusty and unused, as if to hide without actually hiding. His right shoulder hangs loose by his chest, and his tunic stained with blood and darker matter. Shhhh. He is quiet, despite labored breath, and despite the agony of his arm. He thinks: _I must be quiet_, the way some people think, _I must breathe_. Not really because he wants to be quiet (at this point he knows that he will almost certainly welcome discovery no matter by whom) but because it is an ingrained behavior. The woman in his lap would have understood if she was still alive.

Shhhh.

He thinks that he might be dying. Pain shoots through his chest as he attempts to shift his arm, rebuffing the thought. Or not; he isn't a doctor, but he can tell that he's in bad shape at best. So he clutches the woman in his lap with his left hand because he can't move his right (when she is undressed, for autopsy, there will be bruises on her shoulder from the strength with which he held her). She is cold and already starting to stiffen and he can't hear the fighting any more. He wonders briefly who won, but he can't bring himself to care. The room is old, and there are rusty stains leading to where he sits. He thinks he might be bleeding out. While he is old enough to understand that he may be dying, he is still young enough to want to live.

He holds the woman close to his chest because that is how he held her while they slept. Because this is something that he doesn't want to give up doing yet. Because she is dead, and he is not and maybe by holding her death in his arms, he can take it back.

He cannot.

He leans his head back and looks at the small rectangle of window near the ceiling; the light that streams through is the color of butter, and forms a narrow slit on the opposite wall.

Dawn is coming.

Shhhh. He waits for inevitable discovery.

* * *

**Notes:**

(**1)** _'May Michael be at my right hand and Gabriel my left, before me Uriel and Raphael and above my head the divine presence of God'_ –Jewish Prayer.

I felt that this was an appropriate heading for the Preface, because it gives a bit of structure to the themes of the story for me. Traditionally, Michael is the highest ranking archangel and the one closest to God; he commands the celestial army. And he was the Patron Saint of knights, of Law, and justice (sense a bit of a theme here?).

On the other hand, Gabriel is the archangel commonly associated with spiritual enlightenment and good tidings. His name means 'Hero of God.' Raphael is the usually referred to as the angel of healing, and appears to people in times of spiritual/physical crisis. Uriel is the angel of retribution and divine punishment, as well as the angel of knowledge. He is said to inspire artist, poets, and musicians


	2. Chapter 1: Bitter, like salt

**Title:** House of Leaves

**Rating:** PG-R

**Warnings:** Right up to and though chapter 244, except not, as all shall see.

**Summary:** The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.

* * *

**Part 1: a Semblance of Steel**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 1: Bitter, Like Salt**

_

* * *

_

_Well now, we_ are _in a pickle aren't we boy? _

Idiot; should never have left this to you. Should have taken over, should have eaten you, then we wouldn't be in this mess now, would we?

But oh wait; let me think—it was that yellow fucker who trapped you and me. Made it so I'm in here _and you're …safe. Ha! Safe my tail. You should blame him if anyone. _

Stupid kid. Still way to soft. You held back. If you'd just killed that crazy-eyed fuck then you wouldn't be talking with me now. Doesn't that just gall the hell out of you?

Yeah, yeah.

I'll take care of this.

* * *

Kakashi goes to retrieve his boys, because—in a way—it is his fault.

(And besides; no one else will do. He's already failed them in so many other ways; the dark boy, and the fair. He is damned if he'll let him die this time. This time, he can stop it.)

So he is sent, armed to the teeth and confident, because he is the Copy Ninja; legendary in his own day. His Hokage, his village, his one remaining gennin, they send him off with a plea and a prayer (even though he just got back and Tsunade is telling him that he has another mission already lined up—"I'll do it when I get back," he tells placidly her, though really anything but placid—and no one actually knows he's back yet). Off he goes, and nearly to his death, though none of them knew it at the time.

Because he is who he is, he survives. Barely, and by the skin of his teeth, but he survives though not without some help. He manages to drag both boys (one ripped in half with his guts sliding red through his fingers and make-shift staples, the other weeping blood from a slice right between his second and third ribs, and unconscious, thankfully) and his own damaged frame back to the steps of the Hokage's offices before collapsing.

He sleeps.

* * *

He is told when he was born he opened his eyes and stared at his mother, and the hospital room, and the doctors, for a full minute before blinking and, having determined that there was nothing important to hold his interest, shut them again (the doctors tell his mother that it is a possible sign of brain-damage; he is premature after all. His mother tells the doctors that it is simply a sign of genius).

_"—temperature is normal, BP steady; no signs of concussion." _

"Good; and his head? It looked like Sasuke had tried to claw—"

Years later—

"Mother," he asks; he is five and very precocious. "Will I be strong?"

Mother's hair is rich, and dark. He fists it, sticky fingered, pressing it against sticky lips. Mother's eyes are the forest—deep and riddled with secrets. He can count the stars tangled up in the shadows of her eyes; he has only reached one thousand so far. Mother's skin is cool white snow; never quite warm enough but always burning, never quite pure but always spotless. He presses wet kisses on her wrist, her chin.

"Kakashi," she says in her softsweet voice. He pulls it around him like a cloak; this is his shield against the older Gennin and their taunts and against the older Chuunin and their fists. This is the iron rod that holds up his back for him when he cannot stand. "Oh Kakashi; you will be the strongest."

He remembers this when he is old, older. He remembers this standing over the broken White Fang. He remembers this when he is surging through mist and bodies and blood; remembers his mother's hair, and her eyes, and her voice, and he remembers being told that _he will be the strongest there ever was/ever will be/ever is. _

"—forgive him. I don't know if I can; Naruto is, Sasuke—"

"It's wasn't his fault, you understand, and anyway you gotta—"

When he wakes up in the hospital, much like his first appearance there, battered and half-blind he feels foreignfamilar blood surging. He feels the diagonal scar on his left eye burning like acid, like healing, and he feels something resting on the tip of his tongue—what it is he doesn't speak. He looks around the hospital room, at the people (not the ones he wants to see) and the things (not his own) and the beds (not his room), and—finding nothing of interest to him—he closes his eye again. Sleep reclaims him with warm hands.

* * *

"Oy!"

Kakashi's head snaps up, searching for the source of the shout. There is a thump and a crash, and a dark-haired figure tumbles down the steep knoll to land at his feet. In the warm summer sun Kakashi stares aghast for a moment, before breaking into a lazy grin.

"Huh, Obito-kun, surely you've heard that haste makes waste?" His face crinkles in mirth. He is a cheerful boy, and humor is a commonly seen feature on him. "Or in your case, haste makes a twisted ankle?"

(Wrong, wrong; there is something wrong with this that he just can't figure out—)

The other boy rights himself quickly, a faint embarrassed flush lining his cheeks. He tries to look nonchalant and fails miserably. However, ego is not one of his sins so—after discretely making sure that he hasn't actually sprained a bone—he shrugs it off and plops down besides his teammate.

"Yondaime is looking for you," he yawns carelessly. "Rin, too." Kakashi raises a brow and runs a hand though his pale hair. He wouldn't call it preening, exactly, but there is certainly a feeling of pride for being the youngest chuunin of his generation, and for being a student of the Fourth Hokage. The dark-haired youth snorts and mimes a punch at his shoulder. Obito became a chuunin several years after Kakashi already was one. It has been a great source of teasing for Kakashi, though the other lad has yet risen to the bait.

"Do you know why he wants me?"

Obito shrugs. "Dunno. Something to do with the fact that you missed the briefing." There is a pregnant pause; "Again." (Except something about this is not right because he is never late, at least, not like Obito—hey, yeah, he thinks, Obito is the one that's always late, always making up excuses so why—?)

"Shit," Kakashi flops onto the grass disgustedly. The dark-haired boy pinches his bicep.

"Language," is the lazy rebuke.

"Ouch," the pale haired youth mutters without much force. "Bastard."

"So … I suppose you should get going."

"Guess so."

Above his head is the sound of a hundred thousand birds. Then—

The world _explodes._

Fire blooms in his vision and everything around drowns in shades of red. He thinks that he might be running, but he doesn't know for sure; all around him is roaring and keening and rushing. He might be holding somebody, something, but he doesn't know. He might be screaming, his throat hurts, but he isn't sure.

Getoutgetoutgetout!

He can't see. _He can't see._ Oh god—he can't see, and there is blood in his mouth and on his neck and in his hair—

His shoulder slams into something hard; a wall, a chest, a falling beam, and even over the roaring he can hear the joint popping out of place. Something (someone?) is knocked from his grasp and the sharp point of an elbow is thrust into his gut. Bile rises to the back of his throat and for the first time in his life he thinks that he is going to die.

_Oh Kakashi; you will be the strongest._

He kicks out blindly and it connects. A crash, a cry; he tears at his left hand with his teeth. Blood flows freely—this he can feel as it rushes molten hot down his arm through his fingers and oh fuck oh fuck he thinks he might pass out—and his fingers slipslide for the summoning scroll in his pouch.

_—whatthefuckareyoudoingdon'tjuststandtheregetupgetupyoustupid—_

His searching hand finds the scroll (thankgodthankgodthankgod) and he uses his teeth and his tongue and his fingers and he—

Wakes up.

* * *

When Kakashi arrives it is already too late.

Here is the scene; the boys are wasted on the ground, one more than the other. He doesn't notice the blood at first because of the angle. The body is eagle-spread, twisted as if in the process of getting up, the wounds all angled down. The blood spreads slowly, soaked up by the soil and Naruto's own clothes. Kakashi doesn't see it at first because he's looking at the Uchiha heir—his first priority, his protégé. He doesn't see the death because he's looking for the face he failed to save way-back-when, and he's looking in the wrong place. He has always had a talent of being just that little bit too late, in everything. Yondaime told him that it would be his downfall (except not because Yondaime was never so callous).

Sasuke is not unconscious, but something close. He is still, pale, and Kakashi thinks he might be in shock. However, he is still alive. There isn't much for him to do so he just stands silently for a moment, concentrating on breathing.

In. Out. One. Two. There now, see? Not so hard is it?

He should have seen this coming. He should never have left them alone; with his eye, he should have been able to stop this.

Kakashi forcefully holds back the bile edging up his throat, welling behind his teeth thick with the metallic taste of blood, hydrochloric acid, and other compounds that he can't remember the names for. Briskly, because if there is another way to pick up a dead body he doesn't know it, Kakashi slides a blade, a senbon, between numb fingers and attempts to jury-rig Naruto's body back together.

Though he has certainly seen worse, he is momentarily staggered by an image of the boy's body flying apart under his hands, guts and muscles and organs slickly twisting ruby and away as they fall from the maw of the wound.

Once certain things will hold in place while he transports the kyuubi scion, he turns to the prodigal son of Leaf collapsed inward to some personal hell, sprawled dumbly upon hard red-stained rock. It is only then that he wonders what had happened to the rest of the gennins sent to recover the dark-haired lad. He must make some kind of noise because his remaining student transforms; reanimates himself like a re-raised corpse in the span of a blink.

"I am not my brother," Sasuke snarls, bolting upright, scarlet-flecked spittle, eyes wide, rolling; flashing whites liberally. "I'm not. I'm not. _Not._"

Pity and resentment, revulsion and contempt, war inside Kakashi's lean frame—he wonders, rather detachedly, if he should be more concerned on how stable he is feeling with all the horror of the moment. But rather than pursue that train, he focuses on the other feeling and the other thought that wells up along side it.

Poor boy, he thinks staring down at Sasuke's rabid, raving form. He's lost his mind.

* * *

Tsunade oversees the arrangement for the funeral personally. She feels that it's the least she can do because Iruka (as completely undone as any parent would be) is in no condition to deal with it. And besides; she has done it before, so she's an old hand at it.

Which is why, she thinks furiously, her hands should stop fucking trembling. Now. Because, really, she is the Fifth Hokage and a Sannin, and she has done this before.

Hiding her hands, she calls Shizune to her, quietly requesting a new pot of tea and a new flask of sake. Her aide acquiesces with a bow and a worried look Tsunade doesn't dare meet.

She thinks, maybe, this is the price for power. This is the exchange; strength and position at the cost of a life, and always, always his life. Her throat is hot and tight, her eyes itch. It's silly, she knows, and she scolds herself sternly. It is not fitting for a shinobi to cry, no matter how desperately the situation might warrant it.

"Has Hatake woken up since I left?" She asks gruffly instead, focusing on something outside herself for balance, once her student returns with the requested drinks. Shizune shakes her head, a troubled frown pinching her face.

"No. He's still out. Most of his injuries are fixed up, but his face, his eye." Her aide crosses her arms across her stomach and looks a little ill. "I still have trouble believing that his own student would do something like that to him, would try something like that …" She trails off uncomfortably, remembering Orochimaru and the Third and, and—Tsunade can see the chagrin tingeing her student's pale countenance.

The blonde Sannin smiles thinly. "People can always surprise you, if you let them."

* * *

The sound of papers being moved is what wakes him from his long dream.

He is drugged; he can feel narcotics gliding sluggishly through his veins, gentle poison slowing both reaction and thought. This is the first thing he thinks. He concentrates on the feel of the needle in his hand, itchy like a bee-sting, and makes his eye focus on the IV embedded in his flesh. He follows clear tubing up to a morphine-drip, a silent silver sentinel at his side. The next thing that he becomes aware of is the throbbing in his cheek. Incessant, it pulls the skin on his face tight, makes him think of drumskins pulled taunt and thrumming.

He discovers that his lips are painfully dry; he tries to lick them but that hurts too. He makes a small noise.

"Ah—you're awake! Sorry, sorry; here, water—" Damp-palmed hands slide behind him, raising him upright a little, and glass is pressed to his mouth. He slurps noisily, water sloshing down his chin, as he greedily sucks at the cup. He makes a croak of protest when the glass is removed and he replaced on his back.

"Now, now; take it easy." He can't turn his head very well, but he manages to make out a hand and an arm, navy-blue, and part of a flak vest. Jounin, he thinks, trying to marshal his thoughts. Asuma? He wants to ask (even though he knows it's highly improbable because there isn't the heavy scent of cloves—from those horrid cigarettes the other Jounin smokes—and besides, the man has his own team to look out for so …), but his voice doesn't seem to be working too well.

The person, maybe sensing this might be a problem, shifts himself into his line of sight and smiles faintly. "Well Kakashi, now that you're back amongst the living, Tsunade will be happier," Shiranui Genma cocks his head to the side. "Some people where starting to get a little worried."

He licks his lips again, and attempts to speak; becomes frustrated when he can't manage more than a wheeze.

Genma nods sagely, knowing what it is he wants as it is something that he himself would probably ask in such a position. "You've been cataleptic for, oh I don't know, three days now." The long-haired man holds up a sheaf of papers, crinkled and coffee-stained. "I've been taking care of your paperwork and your student for you. Be damned grateful Hatake."

Genma sighs and leans on a fist, senbon tucked carefully to one side of his expressive mouth. "The Hidden Sand helped you back. You were in pretty rough shape. Sasuke crushed your voice-box." He grins grimly. "The Hokage, she fixed you up, but says you might have trouble talking for a bit."

Oh.

Somehow, he feels that this isn't all; that he is missing something, but he can't for the life of him put a finger on what. Then, alarm-bells sounding in the back his skull, he thinks: Sasuke did this to me? Then; _student_? Singular?

_Oh, no._

"S-s-stu—student?" His voice is gravel and glass, but he manages to force the word out. Genma looks faintly impressed. However, the surprise passes into something darker, something older, quickly.

"Yeah. Sasuke has been retained; he's under guard right now. Everything has been stripped from him for the moment—Rank, title, status. Your girl is taking it hard, not that I blame her."

He's missing something. He's missing someone. Tow-haired, blue-eyed; laughing, fighting—why is he not mentioned?

"Na-n-Naruto?" He croaks. He asks even though he already knows the response, and each attempt is like swallowing fire. At least the words are coming now, something he's grateful for it.

Genma looks a little startled. There is pity in his eyes that Kakashi doesn't want to recognize. "Uzumaki was buried yesterday."

* * *

"Please let me see him, please," Sakura begs, pressing tightly clasped hands to her chest. She looks a wreck and she knows it; eyes red and puffy, skin blotchy, and just feeling miserably streaky overall. She has left the hospital only when her father, concerned for her wellbeing, comes to get her in the evening and yesterday for Naruto's burial. Every day, before and since, she goes to the ANBU stationed sporadically around the building begging to see him just for a minute.

The answer is always the same, always no; it's too dangerous.

She wants to disagree. She wants to say that they're wrong and that this is a mistake and that Sasuke would never hurt her (just like she thought he would never really hurt Naruto, because they were friends, even though they fought. And if they weren't friends—which she knows, knew, at least hoped, they were—than they were at least teammates for god's sake), she wants to say that it was the seal making him do these things. Except …

Sasuke is a strong person. She has always known this. During the Chuunin exams, in the forest, he had controlled the seal. She knows that if he hadn't wanted to, he wouldn't have hurt anyone. Which means that he did what he did because— because—

He wanted to.

Sick to her stomach she tries anyway, unwilling to lose this last little bit of her team. "Please, please; just let me see him so—" (So I know he's alive. So he can tell me he didn't really mean it. So he can apologize.) "—so, so; I don't want to lose him _too_."

The last comes out in a bit of a wail, but the ANBU is unaffected.

"No."

About now, Inner Sakura is raging. She wants to kick the door in. She wants to rant and rave, and weep, and scream. She, for once in complete accordance with Sakura herself, wants answers.

Answers that only one dark-haired boy can give her.

She presses her hands against painfully dry eyes, and hears a sigh. "Look," the ANBU murmurs, shaking his head a little. "No one can see the Uchiha right now except for the Hokage. Technically, he's no longer your teammate; I'd say stop thinking about him, but I doubt you would." She can hear exasperation in his voice. He adds as an afterthought; "I'm sorry."

Eyes smarting from tears she doesn't think she can hold back anymore, Sakura nods wordlessly and hurries away, looking for someplace quiet and secluded to have her cry.

* * *

Shizune pulls her sweat-damp hair back from her face and knots it at the back of her head with a senbon. She feels like she has just run a marathon; tired and satisfied. The Hyuuga boy will live—she has mended the hole in his heart with thin silver and he will live.

(Unlike the other boy, the silly, cheerful, stubborn one that she had liked so much.)

On autopilot she paces towards the room of another injured shinobi from the tragically successful retrieval mission and it's only when she's halfway through the door that she figures out which one. Hatake Kakashi; in her mind's eye she runs though his chart. Crushed windpipe and larynx and trouble breathing; lacerations to face and neck (heavier to the face, though), and bruising to the torso (possibly indicating a fractured rib or two). Fracture to the right tibia and deep tissue bruising around the left shoulder.

His room is quiet except for the drip of whatever the hell cocktail it is that Tsunade hooked him up to, and the shift of the lawn curtains over the open window. Shizune finds the man leaning docile against the wall by the windowframe, eyes closed and face puckered in a grimace of pain, despite the drugs.

Probably from _getting out of bed when he isn't supposed to._

Irritated, she strides across the room and takes a hold of his arm. He starts sluggishly, his left eye dark with sleep and other things; his right, even hidden behind layers of gauze and surgical tape, sees through her completely. Shizune's normal disposition is a gentle one, compassionate to a fault and her better nature reasserts itself as she steadies the (much) taller man and leads him back to the bed.

"Doing that isn't good for your recovery," she chides gently, deftly maneuvering him into a prone position. Shizune decides to try for a little humor, worried by her patient's grey features. "You're lucky that it was me that found you and not Tsunade-sama. She would have gotten you back to bed with more injuries than when you left it."

The white-haired man does not reply. His head rolls listlessly to the side, and Shizune finds that she can't meet his gaze because it's so painfully bleak.

"What … happened?"

Though his voice is little more than a rough whisper, Shizune starts in surprise; dark eyes wide, mouth rounded in an 'o' of astonishment. Neither she nor Tsunade had expected him to be able to speak so soon.

"Well," the dark-haired medic murmurs straightening his twisted sheets. "What do you remember?" And what do you really want to know?

"Sasuke, yelling." She can tell that each word is hard for him. He swallows and coughs; manages to choke out the rest in a strangled gasp. "Sewing, _Naruto._"

She nods. "We don't know exactly what happened. Neither you nor Sasuke have been in a state to say."

His dull eye sharpens, lightens from charcoal to rain; fills with questions. Shizune busies herself with checking his vitals. His skin is hot and dry as she takes his pulse. The woman finds that she really doesn't want to discuss this; betrayal is something best related by someone close, or at least someone with more answers. And she doesn't think she fits either bill.

"We think that the awakening of his new Sharingan combined with Orochimaru's seal triggered a psychotic break," Shizune moves her fingers delicately across his scalp, checking, trying to distract herself from the subject matter. Detach. She doesn't tell him that Sasuke is a raving loon imprisoned in a padded room, watched by a complete vanguard of ANBU. "We know he attacked you. We know he nearly broke your neck. We know he tried to gouge out your Sharingan."

She checks the wrappings around his head, makes sure they are secure, clean; satisfied she nods to herself and steps back. Kakashi's face is unreadable. She doesn't dare even guess what is going on in his enigmatic head. Doesn't want to guess. Feeling unaccountable awkward for no reason, Shizune attempts a smile that falls very flat and gathers her equipment. Charts and scrolls under one arm, the other bracing her stomach.

"Well," she says with as much brisk impersonality as she can muster. "Regardless, you need to rest to recover. The Hokage or I will check on you in a little while."

The injured shinobi does not respond. Shizune isn't certain whether she's relieved or not. "Try to get some sleep," she tells him, exiting slowly. She casts one last glace at his silent figure as she leaves, and thinks to herself that sometimes saving a life and making sure someone lived are two entirely different things.


	3. Chapter 2: Platitudes

**Title:** House of Leaves, Part 1: a Semblance of Steel

**Rating:** PG-R

**Warnings:** Spoilers upto chapter 244, and then it travels to AU country, baby. Also, there is creepiness and violence (though not necessarily in that order, or, you know, right now).

**Summary:** The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.

**

* * *

**

**Part 1: a Semblance of Steel**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 2: Platitudes**

* * *

Shikamaru leans his forehead against the thick cool window facing into Chouji's room. His eyes are closed and his mouth is a grim line. Chouji is out of danger now (thanks to Godaime and a book on poisons and antidotes from the Nara family personal library; his father had been on hand the moment they stepped through the gates with blankets and gentle hands and help) but still not conscious. Shikamaru wants to be there when his friend wakes up to reassure himself that at least one of them is alright.

Because right now he isn't. He has never been less alright in his life. And he wants nothing more to do with the shinobi way of life, if this is to be the result every time.

The creaking sound of someone shifting on the plastic chairs lining the wall behind him redirects his attention from his morose thoughts and he peels his eyes open to focus on the pale gold face of the Sand kunoichi reflected to him in the glass. Seeing her face reminds him of time and place, and that there are two others from her team wandering around. Kankurou, he thinks, is asleep in their suite at the Hokage's (having mentioned something of the sort after unsuccessfully attempting to convince his sister to help him relocate their younger brother). It's the other one he's concerned about.

"He still out there?" Shikamaru grates out. She cocks her head to one side, curious.

"Gaara, you mean?" Temari shrugs. "I think so. He was still there a few hours ago."

This is something that has been bothering the young Chuunin since Naruto's burial the day prior, because—first off—he thinks it's just a little creepy that the Sand gennin hasn't left the gravesite since Naruto was laid to rest, and second, when the hell did _Gaara of the frigging Sand_ suddenly give a fuck? Unable to understand (something that hasn't happened in … _forever_), Shikamaru pushes away from the pane and lets his face show the uncharacteristic anger he's feeling about the whole situation.

Even though Sand is now Leaf's ally and he is grateful to them for pulling his team out of the fire and for saving Chouji, because he knows that if they hadn't shown up—well. He doesn't need to say what would have happened. But, even though he knows this, and he knows that a good shinobi would be properly reticent and formal and all 'I owe you one now; keep safe in battle; blah, blah, blah,' it doesn't stop his face from turning a little ugly or from snarling like Kiba had when (delirious from blood loss and fatigue and not at all aware of where or who he was with anymore) a medic nin had tried to remove Akumaru from his death grip.

"Why can't he just leave it _alone_?" Shikamaru demands, voice thick and very young. His fingers press against the glass, try to press through the glass, eyes focusing on something beyond the room and its occupant. "Naruto is dead already," he mutters helplessly. "Why can't he just be left alone?"

Temari's eyes, he notes not for the first time, are a blue so dark they're nearly violet even when reflected in glass. In the right light he thinks they might look black, slick as an oil-spill. Right now she blinks, long sooty lashes sweeping over cool indigo eyes and shrugs a second time.

"Tch," she sniffs, unimpressed with his semi-histrionics. "I don't know why Gaara is still out there; I don't know why he does anything. Ask him yourself."

The girl's blunt derision is enough to make Shikamaru re-schools his features and take a deep, calming breath. Under the green flak vest his chest is still unbearably tight with a feeling of fault and guilt. When the normally slothful Chuunin straightens, very aware of the probing gaze directed at his back, he is back to his normal self. Mostly.

"It's a bother," he grumbles hoarsely, superciliously rubbing salt from his eyes (stupid, really, because crying doesn't do anyone any good, and, anyway, people die every day, and it wasn't Chouji; at least, this is what he tells himself). "But I think I just will."

He turns to the door, not surprised (well, maybe a little, but it's troublesome to muster up the energy for a response right now) when the Sand kunoichi falls into step with him, shoulder to shoulder, stride for stride, the look on her face partly amused and partly apprehensive. Shikamaru thinks that the amusement has to do with him—though what, exactly, he's done that is remotely amusing he doesn't know—and the apprehension more to do with her younger brother, Gaara of the Sand.

After all, he knows that he'd be bloody well apprehensive if it were him with the (formerly) psychotic, demon-possessed, somniphobic, anti-social boy were his brother.

On the other side of the Intensive Care Unit's doors, he sees his father heading towards them with two Styrofoam cups in hand, and his book of crosswords folded and tucked under one arm, pencil tucked behind his ear. Shikamaru feels a bit of a smile ghost over his face as his father stops and sighs at the sight of them.

"Leaving?"

"For now," he shrugs; makes a face to show what he thinks of the whole situation. His father (who is, despite his appearance to the contrary, quite uncanny) leaves it at that and just nods.

"Whatever. Just don't expect your coffee to be either hot or here when you come back," the bearded man warns, lying through his teeth, as he wanders past them. The lazy genius feels something suspiciously like a lump re-form in his throat—something that is completely _not_ possible as he has already vented his, umm, _frustrations_ when Godaime came personally to tell him that Chouji would be okay and that, for a horribly out-classed under-manned near-suicide mission he'd done very well, all things considering. The dull thud of the ICU doors shutting echoes after Temari and he, and Shikamaru is surprised at how much effort it takes not to turn around and run back to Chouji's window.

"Your Dad looks like a pirate." The non sequitor pulls a sharp bark of laughter from him; catching him unaware he chokes and nearly stumbles. Temari is looking at him with a faint smile crinkling her mouth and nose, blueblack eyes dark and slick.

Troublesome, this one. He has a feeling.

He blurts out, mouth agape; "A _pirate_?"

"Yeah, I think it's the little gold hoops. And the beard." Her head tilts speculatively. "You know, given a three 'o clock shadow I think you could give him a run for his money."

Recovering a little, he smirks with a flash of white teeth. Ignores the faint heat that wants to gather in his cheeks. "Really."

She stretches her hands, fingers interlocked, behind her back. "Mm-hmm, I would need to get you some gold teeth though. All real pirates have gold teeth."

"How generous of you," he deadpans dryly, slanting a glance at her. "But I already have all my teeth."

Temari grins then, blonde and fierce and eerily like Ino when Ino is cooking up a particularly bothersome plot to involve him in, and full of promise. "Not after our next fight you won't."

* * *

Hinata can see all the way to the hill from Kiba's window. She presses lightly on his windowpane, releasing the latch and throwing it wide open. A soft wind drags at her face, her hair, and she can almost pretend that the tears leaking out of her eyes are from the sting of the wind and not bonedeep sorrow. She might have even been successful at it, had she not been visiting the boy from the dog clan of Konoha.

"Ah," Kiba grumbles, drawing her attention. She tries on a smile (something that she's perfected over the years; minute and vague, a deft curl of her lip and a soft tilt of her eyes and she can mask having her Neji-nii-san paint her worth on her in bruises, or having seen her father training her younger sister, or watching the back of the only boy who really mattered for one last time—and knowing it somehow) and turns back to her teammate.

"Be careful Kiba-san," she cautions, seeing idle hands picking at his bandages.

Kiba makes a rude noise and a face; it's really quite grotesque—violetbruised, red-striped, and white-taped, and scrunched up in a manner resembling a pug. He has complained—quite vocally—about being cooped up in bed while the rest of the world isn't, and about how Akumaru still hasn't woken-up yet (his sister had whacked him upside the head—gently, of course—and told him not to be loud and obnoxious and to let them both get the rest they needed) and about how he wanted to (and was going to, just as soon as he was able) kick the Uchiha's genius ass. Hinata was so relieved when she had heard his strident voice for the first time since he left, that she thought she might faint dead-away. But that just might have been a lack of sleep speaking.

"Hate this," he rumbles (out of all of the boys she knows, his voice is the deepest; even deeper than Neji-nii-san's. It makes her think of fur and rockslides and tumbling, and it's nothing like Naruto's—something she's sort of glad for right now). "Stinks of—" An abashed sideways glance skitters in her direction. "—Sickness; medicine."

Hinata watches him for a moment, watches the little things that she is already so familiar with, and thinks of all the other little things that she never got a chance to get familiar with. Grasping her elbows tightly to her chest, she ducks her head. She will never ask what she really wants to because it isn't her place.

Instead she asks: "Did it hurt?"

Kiba looks at her and then away, out the window. She wonders if he can see the hill Naruto is buried under.

"Yeah, it did," he says roughly.

* * *

Sometimes, Sakura thinks, the enormity of a situation doesn't impart itself right away.

She thinks that maybe, if she had been stronger or smarter or more intuitive, she could have done something. She thinks that when she had confronted Sasuke in the street she could have screamed, cried for help. She thinks that, when Naruto left she could have gone with them, helped them some way (even though Inner Sakura tells her bluntly that she would have slowed them down most likely and that she would surely have gotten someone killed).

Not that she hadn't anyway.

She thinks that she should have not made Naruto make her that promise. That goddamned promise. She knows that it's what got him killed. She got him killed.

She is a murderer.

_This,_ Inner Sakura says firmly, _is doing absolutely nothing for your self-image._

At this, Sakura breaks out into a watery laugh that very, very quickly disintegrates in to a sob. A sound she has become far too familiar with these past few days. A comforting hand is placed on her shoulder, and she resists the urge to shrug it away and be wonderfully miserable in her guilt. Rock Lee had stumbled across her secluded nook several hours ago (_looking just as vaguely lost as you feel,_ Inner Sakura reminds her, _because you aren't the only one_) and decided to keep her company, something she is both extremely grateful for and resentful of.

"How can you—" _Stand me,_ she wants to ask (except not really because she's so afraid of the answer), but instead clears her throat roughly and says; "How can you be so, so _forgiving_."

This is something Sakura has noticed about the green-clad youth. His capacity to forgive seems bottomless. It baffles her because she has never been so forgiving and because, because—

Part of her thinks that, maybe, some things are unforgivable.

_("I'll bring him back, no matter what. Just wait.")_

Like willingly, selfishly, exchanging one life for another.

Sniffling pathetically, Sakura wipes at her cheeks and twists a little to face the older boy. Lee has a little bit of a troubled look on his face, his fuzzy brows furrowed. They are sitting side-by-side, shoulders and thighs pressing lightly together (something that, at any other time—as both she and her inner voice concur, would have her in fits), and Lee is distantly focused at something on his sandal.

"I'm really not, you know," the taijutsu user mumbles, flexing his leg in an almost involuntary gesture. "You're more forgiving than I am—you've forgiven Sasuke, after all."

Sakura jerks, eyes wide in astonishment. _You've forgiven Sasuke?_ Inner Sakura yelps, clawing into her psyche for a better look. _My god you_ have, she hisses somewhere between disbelief and disgust. _You're horrible, horrible. You never really blamed him to begin with, did you? Not perfect Sasuke-kun._

And that is the problem. She has Lee's hand on her shoulder, Naruto's blood on her hands, and Sasuke's are still blemish-free _because he wouldn't do something like this._

"Lee-san, it's just—he can't, _couldn't_—and Naruto, and, and—" She is inarticulate; doesn't know what to say or how to apologize or, or anything. Sakura wants to explain that she's tried, she really has, but she can't hate him and that she doesn't really know how she feels about Sasuke and that all she really knows is she has this huge gaping hole in her chest where her heart should be—

_A horrible person,_ Inner Sakura hisses.

"And that's okay," Lee interrupts softly, still looking at his feet and stilling the chaos in her head for a moment. He looks up and at her, and—daringly—slides his arm across her shoulders to give her a one-armed hug. "Because this isn't your fault."

Sakura takes a deep, shuddering breath and chokes a little. It's silly, but she feels like she's drowning in tears these day even when her eyes are dry. Lee squeezes her shoulders a little more, and Sakura folds softly into his side, grateful for such undemanding comfort, even if she is completely undeserving of it.

_Horrible._

_

* * *

_

_Ku, ku, ku; this village is in trouble._

Gaara ignores Shukaku's relish-filled voice insidiously snaking around inside his head and instead focuses on the freshly turned earth at his feet, stretching out his awareness via slender tendrils of chakra as he balances on toes and knees and fingertips. He can feel the cool autumn wind (so much wetter here; the air is weighted with it, swollen thick and low with water in every gust) glide across his unprotected back, against the leathery clay skin of his gourd at his side. He feels the thin sunlight filtering through branches and leaves, muted and pale green and just warm enough. He stretches out further; feels worms and bugs and creepy-crawly goes-bump-in-the-night things burrowing, burrowing down, deep through rich black earth.

He reaches.

He feels clay, sticky like tar against his sense. He feels, here and there (because the founders of Leaf had picked good land, rife with nutrients and oxygen and life, and far to wet to allow for much sand) granules of sediment shifting between layers. He feels icy stone. Not rock mind, not sun-heated pebbles or jagged chucks of mountainsides, but slick heavy slabs of dark stone jumbled against each other, pushing, pushing; searching for a way up, out—

He feels bone. Old and new, resting quietly, tangled with the earth and wood in various stages of decomposition. This is what he is looking for. Except—Gaara scowls, press fingers deeper in soil and out, chakra zinging between molecules in his quest for that familiar tickle of power that should be entwined with marrow and blood and chakra—

_Keh, you're not going to find him that easily,_ Gaara has a sensation in his head like a beast licking its chops; dark amusement riding the words, _he's known, hmm, for being rather foxy after all._

Gaara grunts, frustrated. It's here. _He's_ here. He knows, logically, that two meters under the earth that yellow-haired boy, that boy like him only not, is resting, and he can't find him. Shukaku finds offense at this. _Don't lie boy; we found him, only not the way you wanted to find him. _

Because Naruto is there, flesh still solid, bones still thick, but not. There is no red, no yellow, no nothing; just a cold corpse in a pine box.

Even though he can feel it, can nearly see it (did, in fact, see it, _him_, his form small without his lively spirit to animate his body, in the hold of that Leaf Jounin who wouldn't give him up even though he himself was injured), he knows that there is something there, some spark that managed to hide itself and still remain lit. He knows because the boy is like him (blue eyes alight, a feral grin; _I've got a monster too_), and Shukaku is damned hard to hurt, let alone kill. So—

So—

He can't be dead. Not possible. Not with a demon housed in his body. Not with it so integrated that they share chakra.

_Why do you care?_

For the first time in a long while, Gaara replies to the voice in his head. _I don't. _

It's just, there is so much that he wants to understand. Because that silly stupid boy was the only one in forever to give him a real fight; the only one in his memory who kept his word. It baffles him. It—

Infuriates him. That's what it does he decides. He wants to pick at Uzumaki's resolve until it unravels in a pool of useless 'I'm sorry's like everyone else's does. Teeth bared and the beginnings of a headache pricking at his skull, Gaara _pushes_. Dark earth and bone and nothing, _nothing_—

Something.

There, right there buried so deep that anyone who wasn't looking for it would miss it—a coal. Dark, like an unfinished piece of garnet, black and blood and—Hmm, he isn't sure whether it is seething or waiting but either way Shukaku is right. This village is in trouble—

A strange smile drifts across his face, and he stands feeling oddly peaceful (no, that's not it; never peaceful, never at ease, but passive, comforted; knowing—he knows ergo there is no unknown), waiting for his sister and that boy she picked up to reach him. The particles of sand in the earth have carried the sound of their feet to him and he can tell by their tempo that his sister, at least, is not all that eager to reach him.

Tch. And he's been on his best behavior for the last while too.

_Smart girl._

_Yes,_ he agrees crossing his arms over his chest not quite quelling a strange feeling (that is very nearly pride except it can't possibly be) that wants to bloom in his chest. He tilts his head slightly, watching their progress from the corner of his eye.

Once his sibling and the Chuunin are within hearing distance, he slings his sand gourd over his shoulders and turns to face them. Temari, most likely from years of knowledge, flinches ever so slightly, but Gaara ignores her and directs his attention to the dark-haired boy at her side.

"You buried him pretty deep," he states and without waiting for a reply he turns back to the grave with another considering look. "Not too deep, but still."

Shukaku cackles quietly; _deep indeed._

* * *

Tsunade is not a fool (well, that may be up for debate because she has had problems with gambling and betting on the wrong horse, as it were), but she knows people. Even when she doesn't want to, she knows what drives a man. She knows that dreams can be just as solid and real as a glass in the hand, and just as warm as old whiskey. She knows that Orochimaru wants immortality, wants infamy (which, really—she thinks with critical derision—is the same bloody thing). He wants knowledge, the strongest and worst of all poisons. She knows that Jiraiya wants family, wants comfort; wants tactile, fleeting things. She knows he wants a warm body at night (because he's asked. More than once) and she knows he wants to serve, to protect; to be acknowledged.

She knows that a man will kill for money, or for love, or more (because right now love is not worth very much in her book), or for a cause. She knows that the sun will rise regardless of how the day before it ends. She knows that men kill for power, for revenge, for _debt_.

Tsunade knows, but, looking at the black and white face of the second-to-last Uchiha, she doesn't understand.

The boy is haggard; eyes dark-ringed and red, hair lank and stringy. Her ANBU (huh, she thinks: not even a month in and they're already mine?) have done their jobs admirably, making sure that the boy will not be able to inflict harm on himself, clipping his nails to nubs and removing anything on his person that could be used for fatal activities ("As if he would," Jiraiya had snorted the other night during the wake, red-faced with drink but not drunk, not yet. "He's a selfish fuck—like Orochimaru, the shit—and the selfish ones never do harm to themselves, just everyone else." Tsunade was drunk enough to think that the dark brooding carved into his face looked somewhat good on him).

A clawless dragon in a padded room; that is what Sasuke has been reduced to. The Godaime struggles with herself, torn between pity and—

Satisfaction. Glee.

No emotion suitable for the Fifth Hokage of Konoha.

And anyway, even if Sasuke is clawless, it doesn't mean he's not a threat. She reminds herself—rather forcefully—of this. Reminds herself of the Third and his mistake and how he paid, and lets her ego tell her id that she needs to be cautious.

Her id has a habit of not listening.

She grinds out, not for the first time: "Why were you going to Orochimaru?" She already knows the answer, or thinks she does, but she can't ask her real questions. Not yet anyway, not when the dark genius hasn't spoken a word of sense for three days. And she does need confirmation.

Sasuke is a small dark figure against the white of the walls. It's a big room, high ceilinged and windowless. The walls are covered in tufted white cotton, all edges covered, all corners blunted. The lights are embedded in the ceiling, deepset, and slicked over with shatterproof glass, and they cast sharp blue shadows across his temple, his cheeks, and the hollow of his throat. His hospital gown is pale green paper and ties in the back with more paper. It rustles like feathers when he moves.

"I'm not my brother," he tells her while he sits quietly, long thin legs crossed delicately at the ankle. Tsunade thinks that she can see a glimpse of scarlet flecking his dark fever-bright irises. "And he should know that. Stupid. Would you make those birds shut up? They're too loud; driving me insane."

Too late bucko, she thinks.

"And he's so stupid. Making a mess like that. Shouldn't, he knows he shouldn't. Always going on about it, always taking all the attention. Never listening to me; tomorrow, tomorrow, he says, and tomorrow comes but he _doesn't_."

"Godaime," one of her medics murmurs, gaining her attention with a light, differential touch on her arm. "From observation, once he starts … rambling, like this, he'll only degenerate further."

As if in response, the Uchiha struggles to his feet (lacking his usual grace because—and this was something that Tsunade had not been hesitant to enforce at all—all injuries non-life-threatening have been left to heal at a more _natural_ pace) and narrows his eyes.

"You know that. So where is he?" Sasuke pushes his hair off his forehead and paces the length of the wall with bare feet and fingertips. "It's the red, I'm sure of it," he adds with quiet wonderment. "There is always red around him, in his eyes, in his fist."

"Orochimaru, boy," Tsunade reminds gruffly. The youth twitches, a hand going to his neck while the other worries the padding on the wall.

"It's like snakes." He announces after a moment. "Snakeskin; shedding a small skin for a bigger one. Growth. Little deaths. Not dead, just small deaths."

The Sannin watches him for a moment longer, watches the boy picking a hole in the wall as if looking for his lost mind, and can't help but feel cheated.

_

* * *

_

_Hmph. The things I do for you, boy. _

Let me sleep; I'm bored of you now. You're on your own.

* * *

He awakens with a wet, startled rattle.

Choking, at first he thinks (when he is able to think because for a moment all he can do is try to breathe) that he has gone blind. His eyes are open, stretched as wide as they can go, and all he can see is thick, cool dark. He clamps down on his initial panic: there has got to be a reason for this, he thinks. Or he tries to. His thoughts are more like: oh my god I can't see I can't fucking see fuck fuck what the hell did Sasuke-fuck do oh god oh god _amIblindwhereamIwhatdidhedo?_

Breath catching raggedly, he tries to rub his eyes, thinking wildly that—maybe—there is something covering them, but when he goes to lift his hands he can't.

_He can't move his arms._

What the f—

The sparks of rage flicker to life underneath the rushing horror constricting his chest and focuses. He will not be crippled. He can feel his shoulders and elbows, hands limp at his side; he can feel lungs expanding frantically in his chest and an ache in his belly. He can feel thighs and knees and feet. He can feel toes and fingers; with gritted teeth he wriggles them, sighing in relief when they move.

Okay, he thinks. Okay. Not paralyzed and okay. The air smells strangely damp, loamy, and _black_, if something can smell like a color. There is also the sharp scent of pine undercutting everything else; the smell feels like it should mean something, but right now he thinks that there are other things to be focused on.

Circulations returns slowly. Pins and needles attack his limbs with fierce vengeance, but they moved, which is the important thing. Taking several quick, shallow breaths, he flexes his hands, lifting them up—waist high now—up—just above his chest (almost to his face and once he gets rid of whatever's in his eyes …)—up—

His knuckles hit something.

Tentatively, he moves his fingertips across a rough, granular surface. The part of his brain that is able to form a coherent thought supplies: wood.

_Wood?_

Palms flat, he presses—the panel is unyielding and rewards him with splinters. God, he thinks throat tight with sudden claustrophobia, fuck. Boxed in, that helpful little voice in his head tells him. Trapped, he snaps back, scrabbling across the panel with his hands, looking for a lock, or a hatch or a handle and finding nothing _goddamnit_.

Slightly frantic now, he pulls a spurt of red chakra into his hands and thrusts upward, easily breaking apart the planks (or whatever they were) centimeters from his nose, and there is a muted rumble. Thick damp earth is abruptly pouring into his face, his eyes (this is why I can't see, he thinks, surprised that he can even form a thought); his ears—

He opens his mouth to scream, but only manages to swallow dirt. He claws upward with his hands, searching for air, or purchase, or something to block the soil drowning him. There is nothing—everything is too soft.

I will die here.

_No._

He howls in his head because his mouth is full of clay. He will not let this happen. One thought resolves itself in his head, one sentence that rings clarion-bright, piercing through his terror like the shaft of an arrow: _I will not die here._

With this centering him, he shuts his eyes and he digs.

* * *

Night air, cool against his skin, and a flash of eyes.

Earth clutches at him like a dying lover, attempting to drag him down with it. His nails are split open; blood and dirt streaking dark trails across his palms. He struggles, kicking and pulling against a solid current, and fisting tufts of grass for leverage. His lungs burn, feeling too large for his chest; he opens his mouth to scream and ends up vomiting earth and acid.

Halfway in the grave (but also halfway out), he collapses on his aching belly. But this hurts too, and he expends the energy to roll over on his back, which is a little better but not by much. The rushing of his heart in his ears precludes all other sounds and the grime in his lashes blurs his vision. A watery slice of light he thinks is the moon waxes overhead though the shivering of leaves and encroaching darkness.

The last thing he sees is eyes, with the hardness and color of river stones.

* * *

Notes:

1) I bet people are thinking, man; she copped out. And they're right. I kinda did. _But_ there will be actually character death. Actual honest-to-god deader-than-a-doornail death. Just not right away 'cause, you know, _plot_ and I have thirty chapters to fill up.

2) Credit needs to be given where credit is due. I was deeply influenced by randomsome1's characterization of Sakura's inner voice. Also, credit to Asuka Kureru, who really influenced the voice of Kyuubi, and-rather strangely-Shukaku. Upcoming chapters will get into _that_ in more detail.

3) The next chapter has plot. Oooo.


	4. Chapter 3: Warmongering

**Title:** House of Leaves, Part 1: a Semblance of Steel

**Rating:** PG-R

**Warnings:** Spoilers upto chapter 244, and then it travels to AU country, baby. Also, there is creepiness and violence (though not necessarily in that order, or, you know, right now).

**Summary:** The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.

* * *

**Part 1: a Semblance of Steel** **

* * *

**

**Chapter 3: Warmongering**

_

* * *

_

_And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? _

**The Second Coming / W.B. Yeats**

* * *

Tsunade is finishing her check-up on the copy ninja when the outraged shouts arise. Her first thought—before she can quell it, because she _knows_ it isn't anything personal, really (and it's her job and she's being quite unfair, but still …)—is; _why can't I get a fucking break?_

Jaw tightening, nostrils flaring (because she is not happy. Because Kakashi is the worst fucking person to have as a patient, bar none; never staying in bed, never _listening_ to her. Because she has slept maybe a total of a dozen hours in the past four days—not counting, of course, the night of the wake and the drinking and the alcohol-induced near-coma she eventually ended it in), she dumps her scrolls in Kakashi's nonchalant lap and wheels in time to see the door being kicked unceremoniously in.

She is going to rip the head off of whomever—

The Sannin freezes, something slightly crystalline fracturing in her chest as she sees a familiar golden form limp across one of the Sand-brat's narrow shoulders, dark earth caught in clumps of blonde hair reminding her of sin staining the soul. For a long moment, she isn't sure whether it's Dan or Nawaki or Naruto slung like a dirty sack over the youth's back; there is a terrible rushing in her ears and a sour taste in her mouth.

She sees the slightly distasteful look creasing Gaara of the Sand's face, and she sees a smudge of mud on his cheek, just by his chin. She sees her medics and her black-clad ANBU trying to crowd though the slim doorframe after the boy, and unable to due to simple spatial physics and the sand arisen in its master's defense. She hears Kakashi's sharp intake of breath, feels him start to move, rage and injury making his movements less than subtle.

She takes it all in, but not quick enough because before a word can be spoken or a blow exchanged, Gaara and his sands tumble the body at her feet. Naruto's chest heaves frantically under his abused coat, and there is a fevered flush to his cheeks. She sees raw knuckles, torn palms and broken nails.

With a grimace on his thin lips and a glare in his stone-green eyes, he bites out two hard words: "Fix him."

* * *

A devil sits on the head of a forgotten god. 

It's fetching imagery, Yakushi Kabuto muses; whimsical and not entirely inaccurate. The dark man listing negligently atop the ear of a half-sunken statue can certainly be called a wicked person. Murdering one's entire clan does that to a reputation. With a sudden smirk, he chuckles to himself and considers that—were this any other person—it could be said that the man was sunbathing; the afternoon sun having seeped into the smooth green-speckled stone of the head making it delightfully warm, as he knows from personal experience.

He doesn't pretend to be silent. Not only does it serve no purpose for him, he also knows that he runs an unhealthy risk of getting a senbon or a kunai in the throat, or some other vital place. Without his approach masked Uchiha lazily tilts his head to glance at the older youth, acknowledging him with cool red eyes (and hell, he tells himself, even if he had tried to sneak up on him, the dark-haired shinobi would have known somehow, anyway).

"What do you want?" Kabuto shivers pleasantly, humming a little to himself. Itachi's voice makes him thinks of smoke and fires, of blades sharp and dull. He thinks that having that pinwheeling scarlet gaze directed at oneself, solely at oneself, is just as exciting as it is terrifying. He has always found power to be a bit of an aphrodisiac.

"An exchange," he says easily, shrugging off the voluminous cloak he'd brought to conceal him from the desert sun and prying eyes. Folding it with surgical precision Kabuto flops down on the fallen god's temple, right foot braced on a jutting brow. He sighs happily as the heat from the sunkissed stone sinks though his breeches and into his skin.

He ignores Itachi's detached curiosity, choosing instead to stretch out (as well as he is able, trussed up like a pig to slaughter in all his belts and needles and blades; he is still rather disgruntled that Orochimaru-sama had wished him to go and find the brother of his new vessel, though he can certainly understand his master's wish to curry favor—it wouldn't do, after all, to have him killed over a family feud he had nothing to do with) and bask in the waning daylight. Glasses a little askew, he traces the younger man's features—still fine and aristocratic for all the blood spilt on them.

"Ah, I love the desert in winter," he enthuses, narrowing his eyes to slits (almost closed but not, because that truly would be foolish) and relaxing, near boneless, on the stone. He sees faint annoyance flicker briefly across Itachi's handsome face. Blithely, he continues on, playing the genial fool. "I'm not much one for snow; far too wet, too cold; makes me want to sleep the winter away. Give me sun any day.

"Though," he chuckles, still watching cannily from behind his lashes. "The sun makes me sleepy as well."

The Uchiha snorts. A faint moue of distaste curving his lips, he stands and swings his red cloud-covered cloak across his shoulders. As Itachi looms warningly over him (a novel experience, he finds, because he's fairly certain that he's actually the taller of the two), Kabuto allows a idle smile to charm his lips upward; he finds it amusing that though his head knows Itachi is walking death incarnate and Someone Not To Be Messed With, his dick just doesn't remember.

"Sit, sit," he sighs, raising himself on his forearms. Straightening his spectacles, he props his chin on a fist, facing the dying light. The sun has reached the zenith of the horizon, casting long tawny shadows though the dunes and gilding the surrounding cliffs, the broken face of the half-submerged god, and its current occupants, all in molten gold. Kabuto likes the desert, likes the heat and the dryness, but he could never live here. Far too much open space.

The Uchiha remains standing. Kabuto feels were it anyone else, there would be a tick of some sort starting to flex in his jaw. Ah, might as well get right down to it. "As I said, Orochimaru-sama wishes for an exchange."

"Of?"

Not a man of words, the pale-haired man wants to jib but resists. He continues evasively. "The Akatsuki wishes to attain the Kyuubi. Orochimaru wishes to procure your younger brother. Surely, a man of your nature can see the benefit of … _sharing_."

"Information then."

Kabuto sits up, an arm braced on his knee, pretending (well, mostly pretending) distraction as a flying thing of some sort (disgusting insect; he represses a very real shudder) buzzes near his face. He snakes out a hand to snatch from the air. "Hmm? Oh, yes. Information; you scratch our back, we scratch yours, and so on."

In all honesty, this has been his idea from the beginning. Orochimaru-sama can be quite near-sighted at times, while Kabuto has always been one to think ahead. When Sasuke failed to arrive and Orochimaru slipped into his new skin, he'd already been spinning plans to widen their pool of influence during this weakened time. Especially once it was learned that all five of his master's pets had met a rather untimely demise. Really, he mourns, Orochimaru does not appreciate all that I do for him.

Itachi has perfected the blank face; Kabuto admires the view—skimming his eyes over what he can see of the other man's form, looking at both the physique and the weaponry—and cocks his head to one side.

"I highly doubt that you can offer us anything that we cannot get ourselves," he replies in a cool murmur.

"Oh I disagree." Kabuto's smile is sharp now, sharper than the edge of his scalpel, and full of dark things. "For instance, were you aware that the scion was killed by your own brother?"

The Uchiha's mouth flattens; dare he say, troubled? "We were … not yet aware of that information."

Kabuto's grin is sharp and rakish; smug. He knows that this is not something that the Akatsuki will want to hear, that this is enough to derail many key plans. They will need information, and that is not free; Itachi knows this. And by having information that the Akatsuki did not, he is in a position of power. But, by being magnanimous with his information, he gains favor, trust. Or at least the reputation of a fool, which is just as useful—loose lips and so forth.

"Then you also would be unaware, I assume, that he has made quite a, hmm, miraculous recovery." He hums; eyes wide and anything but innocent as Itachi watches him with that unfathomable stillness he possesses.

The sun dips lower and shadows increase; the departure of the daytime star signaled by a palpable drop in air temperature. Kabuto likes the desert when the sun is out well enough, but the nighttime is a bit of a different matter. It's becoming cool, and he is getting hungry; for food now, as well as other things. Complex power struggles always do that to him.

Standing, he clasps his cape in place. Opening his hand he picks a crushed wing from the insect he caught and contemplates it as it rest on his fingertip for a moment, admiring the way the bent membranes refract in the little light left, before blowing it away with a puff of breath. Briskly, he brushes the rest of the bug's remnants from palms and gives Itachi a brilliant smile.

"Let us sojourn," he says, his bow mocking and flourished. "We have much to discuss, I believe."

* * *

"So, are you lurking there for any particular reason?" 

Because he actually is lurking (and he thinks with a sniff that he was doing quite well at it too), he immediately lies. After all, it would be far too bothersome to explain why he has been waiting for the Sand girl and her (creepy) brothers outside the village gates.

"Course not," Shikamaru denies, chomping on a long blade grass. He's picked a choice spot, right in the center of a sunny thatch free of roots and rocks, and lies stretched out on his back, head pillowed in his arms as he glares contemplatively at the tiny scrap of blue sky visible through the trees. This is slightly irritating because he really prefers an unobstructed view of the sky. "And I don't lurk. I wait, I watch, I _laze_, but I never lurk. Too troublesome."

Kankurou snorts, muttering something rude and amused under his breath that Shikamaru can't make out, though he thinks it might be something along the lines of 'bullshit.' Temari shoots a venomous look at her younger brother. Shikamaru just stands, brushing dust and roughage off his trousers, and tries to look innocent (or as innocent as a Nara man can, which—according to his mother—isn't very).

"Uh huh, well," the Sand kunoichi cocks her head to the side, making him think of a raven, only blonde with a crooked smile. "What _are_ you doing out here then, if not lurking?"

Shikamaru evades the question neatly, grinning (what he hopes is) a dashing smirk. "So, leaving are you?"

Temari crosses her arms across her chest, matching smirk for smirk. Irritating girl. "For now."

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask if that means that they will be coming back—or wish them safe journey, whichever slips out first, though he doubts that any of the three would appreciate it; insufferably smug in their ability, all three siblings are—but he resists, running hands over his dark hair and lacing them together at the back of his neck. He really hadn't come out here for _that_. "Because of what happened with Uzumaki."

She holds his gaze for a minute before nodding. "Yeah."

"Not every day someone comes back from the grave," Kankurou adds from where he leans on his encased karasu. Much to Shikamaru's lax curiosity, he seems about to add more, but his eyes flicker from Gaara to Temari and then back, and he remains quiet.

"We have to report this to the Kazekage," Temari continues, tone brisk. "Otherwise we might have stayed a bit longer; creating good will between villages, etcetera."

"And checking up on Konoha's manpower," Shikamaru counters softly.

She smiles brilliantly. "And that."

He thought as much, because though he is grateful that Sand had assisted Leaf against the Sound, he still remembers the Chuunin exams and Sand's part in it. It only makes sense that they would be checking up on Konoha; positions of strength and so on. But—and this is what is really puzzling him—though Naruto's recovery is by every standard incredible (the idea of being dead and then _not_ dead had caused Shikamaru to be a little nauseous for a moment, from both relief and fear. Ino had fainted. But then, his blue-eyed teammate is prone to melodramatics), but not something useful. The number of ANBU away on missions is useful intelligence. The number of missions still being serviced is _useful_; the death then resurrection of a leaf gennin is not. It's interesting. It's surprising. It's frightening. It's a puzzle worth looking at, but it is not useful. Not unless it can be applied to something.

Which, as far as he is aware, it can't.

Hence; conundrum.

"I see." _Not_. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, mentally stowing this information away for a later date. In the process, he pulls his Chuunin vest a little tighter, reminding him of his new rank. The flack vest still feels slightly awkward, like he is playing dress-up in his father's gear (not that he ever did that, or anything). Kankurou looks like he wants to say something to get them moving. Gaara looks a mixture of bored out of his mind, and faintly pissed off. But he always looks a bit like that, so Shikamaru feels it's safe to ignore him—to an extent of course. Would not do at all to be crushed to death by a fist of sand because he isn't paying attention now that he's a Chuunin. Temari just looks like she always does—trouble.

The (formerly) psychotic Gaara of the Sand gives what could almost be considered an impatient sniff and pins his sister (and Shikamaru, but that's just because he's in Gaara's immediate line of sight) with a stony stare. "I'm leaving."

He sees a nearly imperceptible tightening to her shoulders under the lavender (such a girly color, Shikamaru sneers—though not to her face, because he did that once with Ino and then there was much bleeding and pain) cloth of her tunic, but she nods and leaves a small smile on her face. "Okay. Be right there."

As Temari turns back towards Shikamaru, Gaara meets his eyes with an icy smirk and a hot green glare; it sends chills through his chest and a natural urge to reach for a kunai. He doesn't, but only because Gaara is gone in the next instant. Kankurou stays, but (Shikamaru suspects, because he would do the same with such a troublesome brother) only because he doesn't want to be in range if Gaara's in the mood to wreak havoc.

"Make sure you don't get yourself killed while we're gone," Temari grins, mostly mockingly. "I still need to find those gold teeth."

"Right, so you might want to watch for trouble yourself. 'Cause dead girls don't knock out many teeth to my knowledge," he rejoins dryly. Temari laughs aloud, and Kankurou just looks confused and a little long suffering.

Shikamaru watches the two remaining Sand gennin vanish into the murk of the forest, wondering briefly (because it really doesn't matter to him if they come back or not. He thinks) when they might return, and under what circumstances.

"Ahh," he mumbles aloud, rubbing the nape of his neck as he re-enters the village proper. Foolish, bothersome musings that he doesn't need to worry about. So he won't. At least, not for right now. Right now he needs to meet up with Ino near the Ichiraku Ramen because the stupid girl wants to bring a few bowls to Chouji, even though he already _told_ her that their teammate is under strict instructions of no solid food for a few more days. Still, it will be funny to see the ensuing implosion.

A grin on his face, Shikamaru makes a leap for the rooftops as he heads back into the city.

* * *

Ino finds her in one of the hospital gardens. A handful of daffodils wrapped in white parchment rests at her side. She keeps her hands folded neatly in her lap, and smiles vaguely when she sees Ino. _Miss her_, Inner Sakura mumbles wistfully, wanting to slide her hand into Ino's, remembering the cool dryness of her skin, the slender iron of her grip, and the feel of absolute comfort. 

Sakura wants to ask her who she's come to visit; Chouji, Sasuke or—just maybe—herself (_not that she ever would_, Inner Sakura reminds her, maybe just a touch bitterly, _because you told her you didn't need her_). She doesn't, and instead she says: "I think I'm beating you."

Ino flips a long whitegold strand out of her face, narrowing her eyes. Sakura remembers that expression from when they were smaller, remembers thinking, who is this girl? How does she do it? "Go ahead. I'm not sure he's worth it. And you won't _beat_ me," she adds, pretty face haughty. "_Because I don't want him._"

When Ino says this, Sakura sees the surprise on the other girl's face that she thinks must be on her own. She believes Ino, and more importantly, Ino believes Ino, though she leaves out the _anymore_ or the _now_. Sakura doesn't call her on it. Ino places hands on her hips and surveys her with something caught between a glare and something softer.

"Who're the flowers for?"

"Nobody," Sakura shrugs. At Ino's snort she elaborates: "I can't see either of them. Can't even get flowers to them; so … Nobody."

"What about Kakashi? Isn't he here too?" Ino asks, seemingly curious despite herself. She takes a seat to Sakura's right and Sakura sees that the other girl has a take-out bag of ramen at her side. _Chouji then_, Inner Sakura mutters deflating into a whisper in the back of her head. Some part of Sakura wilts a little, but only a little.

"He won't be able to eat that yet," she tips her head at the food. "And I can't find Kakashi. I think he took off, or something; he's never in his room."

"Ah," Ino replies.

"I'm scared." Sakura confides suddenly, though not looking at the other girl. She feels stupid and useless and helpless; out of the three, she isn't sure which is worse. "And happy. Because—Naruto isn't _gone_—so Sasuke didn't kill him. But—"

"Sasuke did kill him," Ino interrupts coolly, not looking at Sakura either. Sakura fiddles uneasily with the head of one of her daffodils. She wants to disagree, but somehow can't. _Because Ino's right and you know it_, Inner Sakura says sharply. _Sasuke_ did _kill Naruto. You saw him—stop pretending._

Even so, she still wants to explain how relieved she is that Naruto is alive again; how happy it makes her because he shouldn't ever die, because now (maybe) she can stop feeling so guilty. Because, maybe, it can go back to the way it was; her chasing Sasuke's back while Naruto pursues her and Sasuke tries to catch him, in a strange-sided sort of triangle.

_Scalene triangle,_ Inner Sakura supplies with just a touch of acid. _A triangle with three uneven sides, three unequal angles; fitting, isn't it?_

_I can't_ stand_ this._

She thrusts the bouquet into the blonde-girl's lap, standing abruptly. "Take them. For Chouji," she adds at Ino's surprised look. "Or Kiba, if you're going to see him, or whoever. Or for your self even, if it's too weird. I just … I've got to go."

Ino accepts the flowers with a queer look on her face and pale pink high in her cheeks and the tips of her ears (_is she_ blushing? Inner Sakura goggles for a second before scoffing; _never, not Ino_). Before she gets too far away, Ino calls out after her.

"The weatherman said it's going to rain," Ino waves a parasol in the air that Sakura hadn't noticed she'd brought. _Some ninja you are,_ Inner Sakura snipes. _What if it had been a knife?_ "So, keep an eye out. Thunderstorms and stuff."

Sakura smiles faintly, waves goodbye, and sets out for the Hokage's office.

_Finally._

* * *

Neji—as he has been told, several times, by Shizune-san, his uncle, and Godaime respectively—is recovering from a potential near-fatal injury, has only recently been allowed to get out of bed. And only then because his keepers kept finding him out of it, against their express wishes ("I give up," Tsunade-dono had roared, startling both him and Hiashi-sama, who had been visiting him at the time. "You are almost worse than Kakashi. Fine! _Fine._ See if I care if you _cripple_ yourself."). Despite the context, Neji can't help but feel a twinge of pride being compared to the legendary Copy Ninja. So Neji sits by his window, peering out at the world he has been temporarily banished from. 

The week of good weather has disintegrated. Swollen grey thunderheads lap at the tops of trees, edging quickly across a sky which seems a richer blue for it. The wind has picked up, though it's still fairly warm. If Neji closes his eyes it feels like an almost familiar hand, soft on his face; he thinks it might be his mother's hand, though he can't remember her too well, or—

It makes him uncomfortable to think about the only other person who's hand had so gently touched his face, even if it had been years ago. Hinata hasn't come to see him and he's glad of it. Hinata … Hinata makes him uncomfortable. She is weak, soft-spoken, and generous; sometimes, against all logic, she reminds him of his father.

He wonders, not for the first time, how she had taken the news of Naruto's death. He wonders even more how she'd taken his resurrection (he had felt … _cheated_ on the former, and strangely relieved on the latter; it had been like someone had tied a cloth over his eyes, blinding him, only to remove it and try to pass it off as a poor joke).

A bonedeep rumble of thunder sounds; clouds flashing ominously. He has been told by his uncle, that—since his return in a near coma about four, five days ago—that it was all very macabre; shining platinum sunlight, clear blue sky, and him in the arms of a medic, all blue and black and red. Hiashi-sama says he had been … concerned.

Mostly Hiashi will just sit with him, reading, or using his Byakugan to study the building around him and its busy occupants (something that Neji can't do for a little while; the Godaime told him that he'd—for lack of a better term—sprained his trait. If it had been anyone but Tsunade-dono, he'd have bet his life that she had no idea what she was talking about). Though just a little after he'd awoken for the first time since returning (with a piercing headache and a feeling like steel wire pulled tight around his heart) Hiashi had said gruffly: "It will not do for you to die. Make sure this doesn't happen again."

It's a strange feeling, Neji muses, discovering you have a family.

He glances outside again, taking in the frothing storm clouds and wishes that he is anywhere but where he actually is. He wishes for his room (though it has only ever been a place for silence and sleep—both things that he misses because both are in short supply here) for while one can recover at a hospital, he has discovered, one cannot actually rest. He thinks it might have to do with the smell; surgical steel and chlorine, bleach and antiseptics (home has never smelt so rank, even on the worst of days, and that's why it is home). Every thing is just slightly familiar, but not enough to count. They do say that familiarity breeds comfort, and all that. Neji chuckles a little to himself—familiarity has nothing to do with comfort.

Comfort is something you have to make for yourself. This is something he had decided long ago, back when his father sat him in the dojo to watch his young cousin and told that his death was already determined; back when he was told that _I'm sorry, your father is dead_ and the world had seemed that much clearer, colder, like a sheen of ice had glazed it.

Ice and sunlight. He thinks, though he will never admit to being a poetic person because—ah—poetry and things like that are weak, a weakness, or something. But he can't help but think sometimes that Naruto is the ray of sunlight that helped him thaw. Even now, he feels something far to close to a blush stain his pale face; normally he just doesn't _react_ like this, but he's tired and emotional and recovering from a near-death experience so he gives himself some leniency.

However, he knows there is no excuse when he doesn't hear the door to his room whine open. It's only when the intruder clears his throat that Neji even realizes that someone else is in the room with him and glances up. _I'm losing my touch,_ he mourns resolving that the minute he can leave this blasted room he will go to the Compound's training grounds and school himself.

"Ah, so you _are_ awake."

Rock Lee has snuck up on him. Trying to hide his faint disbelief (and a large chuck of chagrin) Neji darts a quick look out the window, just to make sure the sky hasn't caved in. Worse yet, Lee sees this and laughs. _Laughs._ Grumbling, he gives the other boy a severe frown.

"It's not that funny, you know." His acerbic reply is ruined by the miniscule softening of his face, the almost-but-not-quite-yet smile lurking in his cheeks. Lee, to his credit, tries to sober up, though instead he absolutely dissolves into laughter. Watching him, Neji sees that the laughter is slightly closer to tears than either boy will admit and that the tone is far more relieved than it probably should be.

"Sorry," he wheezes out. He runs a hand over his face; takes a calming breath. "Sorry. Just—well—stuff has happened, ah, _hell_."

For a slightly terrifying moment, Neji thinks that his teammate is going to break into one of his patented spastic Gai-sensei approved speeches on eternal rivalry, or friendship, or some such nonsense, or maybe even just tears (which would be the worst, Neji decides, the absolute worst). To his relief Lee doesn't do any thing like that, and instead merely breaks into a blinding white (and slightly watery) grin.

"TenTen has been worried about you," Lee says, coughing to even-out his voice which is—strangely—and octave higher than normal. "Gai-sensei too. They would have come, but, well, the village is still a little shorthanded so … Mission." He shrugs, still smiling and the motion causes Neji to notice for the first time that the other boy has a book clutched in one hand.

Neji makes a noncommittal grunt, unsure what to feel. Relieved (sort of) to not be subject to his rather … enthusiastic teacher's ranting. And maybe a little disappointed that the rest of his team didn't come see him (except, he tells himself sternly, he isn't because their village, because their _duty_, comes first and it _should_. Really).

"You look terrible," Lee adds, flopping down in a chair he's pulled up from somewhere.

"Thanks," is his dry reply.

Lee smirks cheekily. "Thought for a while there that you were a goner. Scared me, 'cause I still have to beat you into the dirt, if you recall."

Neji snorts rudely to show just what he thinks of the idea, but doesn't comment beyond that. Perhaps because—even without his Byakugan—he sees something exposed in Lee's dark gaze that he isn't entirely comfortable with. It reminds him entirely too much of electric-blue eyes and a disarming smile/snarl (_Loser, Winner; which is which now?_).

Maybe his fight has done something to him, softened him or opened his face up or something, because Lee leans forward after a minute, licking his lips and just looking dizzysick as he speaks the thoughts circling the Hyuuga's brain.

"He was dead, Neji." Lee drops the honorifics as unabashed horror roughens his voice. "I saw him. There was this hole in his stomach—" The world tilts for a second before righting itself. Neji shudders, but he attributes that to the open window and the now-cool breeze. "—I saw him get _put in the ground_. He was _dead_."

But he's not now, Neji wants to reaffirm. He'd overheard the Godaime when she'd informed his uncle of the development and how she would be busy for the next while. This was three days ago. He doesn't because, well, he just doesn't. Casting about for a change of topic he picks the book forgotten in Lee's white-knuckled grip.

"What's that?" At the taijutsu-user's blank gaze Neji gestures at the narrow book in his hands. Lee stares for a minor eternity—obviously having forgotten that the book even existed—before tossing it on the bed.

"I figured you'd be bored in here," he says with another shrug. He leans on a fist and put his feet up on the windowsill. "I know I was, when I was here."

"…What's it about?" He is loath to ask because this feels too much like pity for his comfort, and a Hyuuga should never be pitied. Feared, certainly; glorified, absolutely—but pitied? Never.

"Birds." Lee answers promptly. There is absolutely no trace of irony or teasing in his countenance. "Got all different kinds in there. Would have brought you binoculars, but thought since you have your blood limit and all …"

Neji doesn't tell him that he can't use the Byakugan at the moment. He doesn't bring up the mark on his forehead or his place in his family or his hastily spoken words during the Chuunin exam. He doesn't say anything at all. Had this gesture, this book, come from anyone else (well, not anyone, maybe; he thinks he would have believed Naruto because Lee and Naruto are cut from the same cloth in this respect), he would have thought that they were making fun of him, trying to hurt him. Lee wants to defeat him. Wants to show him, like Naruto had, that birth and position and promise are separate entities. There is no malice in Lee.

The dark-haired youth stands, leans against the window, peering out at the dim sky. He leans so close that Neji can smell the dust from the training grounds on his skin; he inhales it greedily. "Storm's coming. Quickly too."

"Hmm."

Lee pulls the window shut, scolding him in a manner than Neji wavers between being amused by and annoyed with. "You need to rest. Rest's the great healer, Gai-sensei always says."

Neji chokes back a rude noise (because even if his teacher is a bit of a crack-pot, he is still a Jounin and his superior and he has to have done something to get where he is today and … he isn't entirely sure that Lee wouldn't thump him for it), and hobbles from his seat by the window to his bed. He joints are stiff, muscles clamping up periodically. Shizune-san has told him that it will fade with time, so all he has to do is be patient.

Lee is moving to the door at a somewhat jaunty pace. _Bastard_, Neji thinks without too much venom. At the door the dark-haired youth pauses, turning.

"Oh, and Hinata says to get better," Lee looks … curious, possibly. Maybe a little puzzled. Maybe a little surprised. Neji isn't sure because he is suddenly focused on the crease of the ceiling above his head. He counts the number of fractures in the plaster (five) and tries to figure out the size of their angles in relation to one another with (slightly) rusty geometry skills.

"She says that she'll try to come see you later; says every time she's been by you've been out of it." He continues, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. "She's a nice girl. What time she didn't spend with Kiba she spent with you; I even heard that Tsunade-dono had to send her home a couple times because she just wouldn't leave."

Hinata; dark-haired and white-eyed, with the perfect Hyuuga features but not the strength.

Hinata who he'd first seen before he knew the difference between being of the Head Family and being of the Branch, and who he'd wanted to protect despite that.

Hinata who he hates because she has everything that he never will, and who he protects because of it.

Hinata who he had beaten to unconsciousness and almost death, and who he had believed—had been so absolutely _sure_—would _finally_ hate him back.

Hinata who, like Naruto, just doesn't give up.

God damn her.

* * *

Outside the sky has blackened; lightning splices bloated charcoal clouds releasing a deluge of rain on to the city. 

Naruto smells rain and blood and something cold, and it drags him from sleep's warm embrace and back into the waking world.

With an aching head.

_Shit_—he keeps his lids lowered, trying futilely to block out some of the harsh yellow of the neon light. Pulling his lips back from his teeth, he snarls and a voice emerges through the pounding in his ears.

"Relax. You're in the hospital. I'm turning down the lights."

Of course Naruto thinks; who the hell would relax after _that_, and promptly struggles to sit upright with strangely weak limbs. His mouth tastes stale. After a moment—and quite against his will—he falls back on the bed. If he was any less tired, he is sure his face would be red with humiliation. Thankfully, at that moment the lights dimmed to a faint golden glow towards his right (a lamp, or something, he thinks) and he finds it's safe to crack his eyes open.

_Ugh_ … Or not so safe; even the low light of the bedside fixture hurts like needles sewing away his thoughts, as he finds out. A low groan escapes him and a deep laugh replies to him.

"Don' laugh at me," Naruto moans, twisting away from the lamp. The light is doused. Thank god; he wants to weep as the pain recedes to something slightly manageable.

Okay, he thinks pragmatically. Let's work on opening the eyes and go from there.

He slits his eyes open, and when he doesn't keel over dead or unconscious (because, for a while there, both seemed like viable options), he widens them and finds himself staring at a shapeless blob of grey. Naruto blinks rapidly and the object slowly comes in focus. Oh; it's just Kakashi, he thinks in relief.

_Kakashi?_

The boy bolts upright, and regrets it instantly. His head swims and his middle twists horrifyingly; he thinks if there were anything in it, it wouldn't be there for much longer. Large hands steady him, and he leans into them gratefully.

"I said _relax_."

Well then. If Kakashi said relax, then he probably should. Gradually, Naruto unclenches his muscles and as he does he feels his bones turn to jelly. Fuck, he thinks, sliding back down on the (rather uncomfortable, he now notices) hospital bed. So not a smart move on his part, the whole sitting up thing, a (annoyingly) helpful voice in his head tells him; he tells it to shut the hell up.

Finding himself able to move his head (slightly), Naruto turns and rolls his eyes at his teacher. The grey-haired man grins in … relief? No, no, Naruto looks speculatively at the older man, trying to gauge his reaction. Kakashi only does relief when his team catches him doing something … not so kosher and then escapes their wrath by divine miracle. Not relief, definitely not, but maybe amusement?

Bastard.

"What're you grinnin' at?" He mumbles, and is surprised by the faint slurring of the words.

"Nothing in particular," his teacher drawls. Then a slightly more serious look crosses the masked face, and the smile fades. "But you do need to rest. You're still healing inside, and Godaime says you need sleep for that."

"Ol' hag here?" Naruto frowns, trying to remember just what he was doing before, well; before he ended up prone and head-achy in the hospital. There is definitely something he's missing because there is a gaze patch under Kakashi's forehead protector, over his Sharingan, and he looks older somehow.

"Not at the moment, but she's going to be check on you in a bit."

Oh.

Restlessly, Naruto twists his head to look and see if he can make out anything on the other side of the bed, and hears a crack of thunder for his efforts. A few seconds later a flash of lightning illuminates the room. He sees long blank walls, and in the halflight they take on the shade of wet river stones—

_Dirt in his mouth and above him eyes—green and black and a flash of white; a red kanji stark on skin the color of sand and a hand firm on his wrist, hauling him up and over—_

Ugh.

"Your head hurt?" Naruto nods pitifully, and he feels tears leak from his eyes. It just hurts so fucking _much_; it feels like he died, except when you're dead you're dead so no one knows what that feels like, and it's a stupid analogy anyway. Embarrassed, he turns his cheek in the direction of the window. Another rumble of thunder recedes and a flicker of lightning manifests.

"Here," a glass is held to his lips, blessedly cool, but he finds that he can only drink a little. Even so, he feels markedly better for it. "Most likely a dehydration headache; drink lots of water. Don't want to risk giving you something that might make you worse."

Or you want to torture me to death, Naruto is tempted to snipe, but his eyes feel far too heavy and he starts to wonder vaguely if the water really was just water and not actually laced with a sedative after all.

"Sleep Naruto," Kakashi murmurs, or that's what he thinks the other man is saying. A crack of distant thunder drowns out his voice. Naruto struggles to stay awake by counting the seconds between the sound and the light but somewhere after five he finds himself drifting off; the crackle of blue light troubling his dreams.

* * *

"Huh," Kisame grunts around a mouthful of food. "A bold move for someone so sly. Do ya think Orochimaru knows about it?" 

Itachi taps the side of his bowl with a long finger, a thoughtful frown on his face. "He'll know about most of it, one would think."

"Cheeky bastard, that Kabuto is," Kisame grins viciously, alien eyes flashing. "Wouldn't mind having a bit of fun with 'em; sure _he'd_ appreciate my sense of humor."

Itachi makes a noncommittal noise. His plate sits half-eaten and forgotten in front of him. Kisame is moving on to his third helping. Abruptly, Itachi stands, red-clouded cloak swirling around his ankles. "We need to get back."

"Hey, hey, hey; I'm not finished yet," Kisame protests slurping back the rest of the broth of his soup. He grumbles, retying his own cloak with nimble fingers and adjusting the round reed hat to his liking. "Besides, I thought we were supposed to wait here to check-up on the Sand brat. Especially after you left the nine-tails behind that time."

Kisame chuckles; "I thought you were gonna be skinned that time." The glint in his eyes lets Itachi know that he would have been more than happy to assist with the suggestion, had it been carried through. He represses a grimace of disgust (as if that idiot would get anywhere near me, he thinks disdainfully) and drops enough coins on the table to cover the meal. No more, no less. Kisame stretches leisurely, eyeing the smooth skin and plump flesh of one of the servers at the bar with a different kind of hunger.

"Hurry up."

"Tch, impatient are we? What _did_ that white rat give up that would cause you so much anxiety, hmm?" Itachi can only see Kisame's strange white-on-black eyes glittering madly from underneath his the brim of his hat.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with."

"Whatever. The data better be good this time though. Don't fancy missing another paycheck."

Itachi does not reply, striding swiftly through the crowds that part unconsciously before him. Kisame follows without a word and soon they have reached the city limits. Itachi checks his gear, making sure his blades are stowed effectively and his senbon and summoning scrolls accessible, as he passes through the large stone gates. The chill night wind of the desert plucks at his face where exposed, shifting sand made stark white by moonlight.

Once, a long time ago, Itachi remembers thinking the first time he crossed the desert at night, with its sculpted waves of silver and pale, that it is like walking across clouds. With this thought lingering strangely in the back of his skull, Itachi moves towards the opaque darkness lying beyond the city lamps until it swallows him whole.

* * *

**Note:**

1) First off, Neji is a _bitch_ to write. He was by far the hardest of all the characters that I've tackled. Again, Shikamaru was the easiest. Huh, guess that says something, no?

2) Forgot to mention this in Chapter 2, but the whole coffin scene was inspired by _Kill Bill, Part 2_. Didn't like it as much as the first one, but there were parts that were just brilliant. So, again, credit where it's due.

3) Kabuto is evil. I hope that I got him somewhat close to right, because he was interesting to write and I'm going to try to do him again. Now we are getting into that whole plot thing that I mentioned eariler.

4) Plot is _hard_. My writing wants to disintergrate into character dribble and angst. Plot wants snark and action. Which I don't write. But I love Plot, so am trying to make plot happy. Whether or not it's a sucessful attempt or not ... only time will tell. I guess.


	5. Chapter 4: Nesting Dolls

**Title:** House of Leaves, Part 1: a Semblance of Steel

**Rating:** PG-R

**Warnings:** Spoilers upto chapter 244, and then it travels to AU country, baby. Also, there is creepiness and violence (though not necessarily in that order, or, you know, right now).

**Summary:** The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.

* * *

**Part 1: a Semblance of Steel** **

* * *

**

**Chapter 4: Nesting Dolls**

_

* * *

_

_"... for there was no darkness for him and, no doubt  
like Adam before the fall, he could see in the dark." _

**La dragonne / Alfred Jerry (1)**

* * *

Kakashi stands outside the room, because (Godaime says) they don't want to _agitate_ Sasuke.

Which is probably just as well, he finds himself agreeing reluctantly. Because, really, he knows that he would do something to upset the boy, like thumping him over the head. He still can't believe just how fucking stupid the boy was, is, because even though Naruto is alive again (thank God or Satan or whatever, because he really doesn't need much more blood on his hands. They are already red enough, thank you very much) the boy still struck a killing blow, still _followed through_. Kakashi wants to beat him to a pulp (again; because he doesn't think once was enough, and he's tried talking, and he's tried guilting and he's tried force and nothing _works_). Kakashi wants to shake him and ask him if he really wants to end up like—

Him. If Sasuke wants to end up like him.

Kakashi scowls. Tsunade and her minions have stolen his mask (among other personal effects, for the time being) because—she claims, and he's just not quite confident enough to call the Fifth Hokage and Sannin a liar to her face—it makes it easier for her to treat his eye. He feels rather naked without his mask and, if given the choice, would be hiding away in the darkest corner of the hospital awaiting its return.

But, because he _can_ move around now (no matter what Tsunade says), he tends to lurk near the Quiet Ward where his most troubled student is incarcerated, waiting to spring out all very stealthily and ninja-like (despite being wrapped in a hospital robe and numerous bandages) at the Godaime or Shizune to find out about Naruto (who he can see, and does very, very regularly) and about Sasuke (who he can't see and isn't sure he really wants too).

"He's psychotic," Tsunade had briskly confided earlier, bone-tired of his, what did she call it? Ah, that's right; insistent harassment. "But it's just a trauma, and that's something I think will calm down, after a while. And possibly the right combination of psychotropic drugs."

Well, that doesn't do me much good, he said. Or he'd wanted to say. What came out was more of a lax, "Mm."

He needs Sasuke to be coherent because, well, he wants to make sure that the boy isn't so far gone yet.

_Or maybe,_ the voice in his head Kakashi usually ignores says;_ you want to find out just how far gone he already is—so you can take care of it._

Kakashi has always been good at cleaning up other people's messes. He might not particularly like it, but he knows how to do it. He'd done it for his father. He's done it for his mother. He'd done it for himself, on occasions where he'd fucked up spectacularly (Rin, _Obito …_) and he knows he can do it again, if he has to.

He wonders if this profound … disappointment, this feeling of abject failure, is something that Yondaime had grappled with in the wake of Obito's death, and then Rin's in turn. Kakashi knows logically, there is not really anything he could do differently than what he's already done. He knows, but he still remembers the heavy dead meat of Naruto's body in his arms, and the stinging rake of Sasuke's nails across his eye as the boy _wailed_, and the feeling of his own blade parting his student's flesh and thinking, I will kill him. It hadn't even been angry, the thought, just dreary and accepting and certain; _I will kill him._

Though he has been praised for his skill by merely incapacitating the youth (a few broken bones here, a weeping stab there; what are a few wounds between friends, eh?) instead of decapitating him, Kakashi knows better.

Kakashi knows that his grip had slipped due to a gash on his palm making the grip of his kunai red and slick. He knows that he was having trouble seeing, and that because he was having trouble seeing, he'd guessed and misjudged. He knows that he had hesitated, thinking_ this could have been me this should have been me but I escaped it and maybe he can too,_ and that hesitation nearly cost him a second eye, with no Rin or Obito to look to for a replacement.

He isn't sure whether Yondaime would be proud or disappointed.

_Always follow through; never strike a blow you aren't willing to kill with,_ Yondaime'd lectured time and again (that one was meant mostly for Obito because he was Obito and not a killer). _Economy of motion, you don't need fancy_ (that one was for him, and so was the thump on the head that accompanied it). _Survive by any means_ (directed mostly at Rin, weakest of the three, but meant for all of them). And he had. But he missed and Sasuke survived and—somehow—Naruto did too. He had aimed a killing blow, restricted his movements to necessity and survived, just like he'd been taught. But Kakashi is fairly sure those ideologies had been meant for the enemy, and not one's own comrades.

"You should be in bed," the dark-haired medic murmurs fretfully, appearing from seemingly thin air and coming to a stop beside him. Kakashi twitches in surprise, annoyed by his lack of attention. They are both facing the door to Sasuke's room, because—and it only makes sense—there are no windows. Just long smooth expanses of white walls on either side occasionally broken by triple-reinforced steel doors. Shizune is clutching reams of files and assorted scrolls to her chest. She's wearing the white robe of a medic-nin which causes Kakashi to reminisce wistfully of a chapter in his beloved Ichi Ichi Paradise because that's easier than thinking about anything else.

"Not tired," he says instead of, _can't sleep_, which is far more accurate and much less manly. He looks straight ahead, not beside, not behind. It's not his way, but he has to remind himself. "And my reading material has been lacking of late."

Shizune frowns; he can feel displeasure radiating from her like heat from the sun. Or that just may be her weariness calling out to his. Kakashi is sure that the young woman has lost just as much sleep as he has, if not more. "Doesn't matter. We can give you a sleeping drought if you need help sleeping, but bed rest—"

"Has never been my thing," he interrupts, slouching against the wall, idly watching the ANBU changing guard and wishing it was him.

_"Doesn't matter."_ She huffs, rounding on him with a gimlet glare. "You need to _listen_ to what you're being told."

Kakashi gives her an indolent grin. "Never have, and look at me now."

"Yes, _look_ at you."

Ouch; a little close to the mark, that one. Though Kakashi hasn't known Tsunade's disciple for very long, he recognizes her mortified blush when he sees it. She fidgets with the tie of one of her scrolls.

"I'm sorry, Hatake-san," she apologizes when there really isn't anything to apologize for.

Uncomfortable, he nods instead at the door. "Any change?" Not that he's expecting much change from when he asked about an hour ago.

"No."

"Ah."

Silence reigns supreme and Kakashi feels restless. He doesn't remember ever having been so inactive. It's … eerie.

"You really do need to get to bed, Hatake-san," Shizune reminds him gently. "Sasuke isn't going anywhere. And you can't do anything if you yourself aren't in good health."

Damn women and their stupid logical _logic_. "If you give me back my books I'll consider it."

"Hatake-san …"

Kakashi becomes a bit lightheaded; it's so odd to be … flippant, because he knows that, a week ago (less!), he thought that he'd never be able to be so cheerful again. A week ago he had carried the body of a boy he was suppose to take care of back home, failed responsibility heavy on his shoulders (again, again, _again_). Five days ago, he was waking up numb with drugs and pain and failure.

Death is expected, certainly, but there's always something a bit more tragic when a student goes before a teacher, or a child before an adult. If Kakashi didn't know any better, he'd say that things were back to normal. Almost.

(Except, and he knows this better, best, of anyone; things never go back to normal, not ever.)

"He's comfortable," Shizune tells him, apparently having given up on getting him back to his empty room. Because Konoha is so shorthanded, anyone who would have sent him anything remotely get-well-ish is away. It's slightly depressing. And the thought make him wonder, briefly, how Sakura's holding up. He puts his thoughts of her away because Genma is watching her, and he's pretty sure the other man will tell him if there is anything amiss. It's gotta be hell for her, though, he thinks. No being able to see anyone. Not important enough to be told anything. "Well, comfortable enough for his injuries."

Kakashi sends her a questioning glance. Tsunade will always tell him what he needs to know, but _only_ what he needs to know. She doesn't know how to embellish.

"Because of how thin-stretched the hospital is," Shizune explains. "Tsunade-sama passed along a notice that all non-fatal injuries are to heal naturally. It conserves chakra."

"I see."

"And Naruto-kun is doing better every time I see him," she marvels. "His breathing has smoothed out, and his hands are nearly completely healed; though I've never seen such chakra burns before."

Kakashi wants to be surly and point out that anything above death is _better_, but he doesn't because she's right. Since Gaara had dumped the lad at their feet three days ago, he'd done nothing but improve. It's only because Kakashi had been there that he actually believes Naruto had died, _was_ dead; despite now, well, being _not._

It hurts him to think on it.

"Tsunade-sama thinks it's due to the Kyuubi's presence in him," Shizune says quietly, then pulls a face. "Well, she _knows_ it's the Kyuubi's presence because his heart had stopped—"

Beside his abruptly silent companion, Kakashi stares languidly at the junction of the ceiling and the floor, and wonders how many times a day the maintenance crew has to scrub it to get it so blisteringly white. "You can say it you know."

"What?"

"That he was dead."

_That he was failed,_ that voice in his head mutters (he thinks it might be Yondaime's, or maybe even his father's), but isn't ever spoken aloud. _Go on, say it._

_Blame me._

"Oh," Shizune flushes rather becomingly (he can just make it out from the corner of his eye; Kakashi has excellent peripheral vision). "Well, yes. But he's not now, and that's what matters."

Kakashi shrugs, never having really been one for arguing (though, he supposes, there are some who would care to argue _that_) and slouches down against the wall a little harder. His chin dips and comes to rest on his chest. Shizune sighs.

"You're not going back to your room, are you Hatake-san?"

"Mm."

Shizune snorts and shakes her head. He knows she has too much to do to waste time fighting a losing battle with him. He waits until her footsteps have retreated before he relaxes, loosens his joints and very nearly his tongue. Bones aching, head aching, _mouth_ aching with bitter unsaid things, he slides down the wall like the spider down the spout, but he does not go up again.

Minutes later—or maybe hours, he doesn't try to keep track—he sleeps.

* * *

Sakura awakes to the vestiges of phantom earth clogging her throat.

She jerks upright, eyes stinging, mouth raw, and gasps. She's heard of sympathy pains before, but part of her thinks that sympathetic nightmares are going just a little too far. Sakura hasn't gotten a decent night's sleep in … forever; certainly not since Naruto and Sasuke left and returned, both in pieces. _Maybe you can ask Godaime-sama for something to knock you out for a while,_ Inner Sakura suggests as she yawns. _The worst she can say is no._

True. But sometimes no is the worst word in the world.

However, Sakura has not spent the afternoon camped outside the Hokage's offices for codeine filled pills or potions. Huffing, she stands and stretches and wishes absently for a change of clothes and a drink. Like coffee. Except not, because she's always found coffee to be far too bitter and not so good for her nerves and she gets jittery so easily—

_Now you're just getting nervous,_ Inner Sakura interrupts firmly. _Stop that._

"Hello there, what do we have here?"

Sakura's head whips around so hard she thinks she hears something crack. Inner Sakura squeals and tumbles, and dizzily points out that despite the slightly wicked tone Anko is almost certainly not a danger. Maybe. Possibly.

(Except she's the crazy woman, remember? Naruto but female and slightly less than steady.)

Her once-examiner eyes her curiously, running a hand through spiky almost-violet hair. "You waiting for somebody girl?"

"Uh," Sakura stares dumbly, mind blanking for an instant in that infuriating way that one loses words and sentences and whole theories due to inactivity. _Hokage, remember?_ Inner Sakura disparages. _Help, advice; remember?_

"Well?"

"Ah, yes." She blushes. "Right. Um, do you know—ah, the Godaime; I'm looking to talk with her—"

"Well she's not here," the older woman replies frankly, looking a little amused. _More than a little,_ Inner Sakura grumbles petulantly. "Spending most of her time at the hospital; think they prepared a room for her temporarily."

"Oh." Indeed. Sakura bows her head, feeling ashamed that she hadn't _thought_. So simple; of course she's at the hospital. Naruto's there and so is Kakashi, and Sasuke-kun; how could she be so _stupid—_

"Why're you waiting around for her?" There is nothing more than a sort of idle curiosity in her voice, bored and kind of whiskey-rough. Part of Sakura's mind not occupied with her blunder wonders what exactly happened to give Anko such a deep, almost broken voice. _Girls don't get voices like that naturally,_ Inner Sakura mumbles, slightly intrigued by the thought as she eyes Anko's throat for scars, _do they?_

"Ah, I was hoping to get some advice on a sort of personal matter," Sakura explains with a small shrug. She clasps her hands behind her back to still the nervous fidgeting that they want to do. She remembers that Anko associates with Torture & Interrogation. She remembers that, if rumors where to be trusted, Anko is or was or has been at some point the only real student of Orochimaru. Sakura feels a shiver crawl up her spine.

_Nerve wracking, I believe they call the feeling_, Inner Sakura supplies from deep, deep in the back of her brain.

"Shoot."

Blank, blank as a slab of fresh blackboard her mind is. Inner Sakura squeaks and Sakura forgets to hold it in; "Excuse me?"

Anko cocks her head to the side and slides a hand to her hip. All in all makes Sakura think of someone standing on a listing ship, all her weight focused on one side of her body. "I'm excruciatingly bored and you, if I remember correctly, are in that team with that the Uchiha and that blond kid; the one that came back to life. So whatever it is, it's _got_ to be more interesting than making sure these files get where they need to go."

"Oh."

"So …"

"Oh, yes." Sakura looks down, flushing. It is one thing to want to talk to the Hokage because that's what the Hokage is there for; advice, support and wisdom. All wrapped up in a completely confidential package. She remembers reading a book a while back that was about some country she can't remember and that may very well no longer exist but that had an order of priests, of Fathers (she thinks they were called, but isn't too sure), who that took confessions, of guilt and otherwise and dispensed. She remembers thinking how convenient a system it had seemed at the time.

Anko is waiting but not too patiently and Sakura is again struck by an image of Naruto sighing impatiently and tapping his foot overlaying the woman's visage (_too alike they are,_ Inner Sakura mutters).

"Umm, I don't really think it's anything you can help me with," Sakura twines her fingers into a knot. She doesn't want to offend the older kunoichi(_oh you definitely don't,_ Inner Sakura adds with a touch of horror. _She'd probably string you up by your ankles or eviscerate you, or something_), but it's one thing to discuss something with someone like the Hokage—someone so completely safe like the Hokage—and it's another to discuss it with someone like Anko; some unknown quantity with no safeguards, no guarantees.

Anko hums, blows out a gusting breath and actually does tap her foot. "You won't know until you try. And it could be _days_ before you get Godaime free for a chat."

It's all true; Sakura wants to despair but the innately optimistic part of her nature, small though it is, has decided to throw a coup and set up a new regime. Energized, Inner Sakura cheers; _it's not_ that _personal anyway, and Anko's a Special Jounin so she might be able to help._

"You're right." Sakura releases her hands and then tangles them in the short ends of her pink hair. She sees a faintly annoyed look flit across Anko's and realizes, if somewhat belatedly, that she's stalling. "It's hard though."

Anko waits.

Sakura looks away, picking a spot on the wall to focus on while she struggles for the right words. Finally she just bursts, spilling out her discontent quickly like an over-full cup. "I can't _do_ anything; I'm always helpless. Naruto made me a promise and he kept it. Everyone is always _protecting_ me," she spits, disgust curdling her voice. "And I hate it."

Anko snorts. "So do something about it."

She very nearly wails in frustration; "I _can't._ I don't know _how_—"

"Rubbish." Anko's voice is suddenly hard. "Sounds like whining to me. Sounds like you haven't even tried anything. And you were going to bother the Godaime for _this_?" Inner Sakura bristles; _what the fuck do you know? You don't know me._ Sakura is slightly more diplomatic.

"Pardon me, but I think that you don't really understand the whole situation," Sakura feels a scowl inching across her face and forcibly pushes it back. "So you can't just make snap judgments—"

"Of course I can," the older kunoichi interrupts without preamble. Her gaze is glacier. "I've seen hundreds of little girls like you. Pretending to want to play with the big boys to get the attention of some pretty-faced shinobi—" (Sakura can quite literally feel the blood drain into her stomach, making her pale-faced and a little dizzy, before it surges back into her face with a sickening rush of fury. _A little too close to home, maybe?_ Inner Sakura whispers treacherously in her skull.) "—trying to act all independent and strong but really just wanting to be pregnant and barefoot in a kitchen somewhere for your _sweetheart._"

Anko spits the last word out like its poison burning her mouth. Inner Sakura is incoherent with apocalyptic fury; _she has no fucking idea—how dare she—not_ like _that—_

"_You,_" Anko says with a sharp glitter in her eyes. "Are a dime-a-dozen, girl. So stop angsting and get over yourself. Go start working in a flower shop or something else more suited to you."

_Bitch._

The air slams out of Sakura's lungs and for a split second she thinks she's either going to faint or attempt something very, very stupid like try to hit the older kunoichi. To her surprise and relief she does neither.

"I am not like that," Sakura hates the soft, slightly gravelly tone her voice has taken on; sounds entirely too close to tears.

Anko holds her hands out at her sides, palms up, not in a gesture of supplication but of challenge. "Then fucking _try_ something before you start saying you can't do anything. Prove me wrong."

_Just watch me._

* * *

Naruto refuses to sit patiently. It's been five days since he's been put here (from what he's gleaned from supposedly private conversations) and he's been absolutely fine for the past two. Sure, the first time he woke up he'd been headache-y and sore and _hurt_, but after a little sleep he'd been right as rain. Every one could see it, can still see it. His hands aren't burnt anymore, and his middle only aches if he lies on it the wrong way or for too long. And he wants to get out of this bloody room because at night the ceiling seems far too close and the meals during the day are so not up to par with his regular repasts that it isn't even funny. The Old Hag, however, refuses to believe that he's better and has confined him to his room until she sees it fit to release him.

Which, by the way, is totally un-fucking-fair.

So he fidgets and he does so mostly on principle, because sitting still is boring and there has to be _some_ recompense (like annoying the hell out of Tsunade) for being stuck in a place like this, but also because seeing exasperated affection light Tsunade's eyes is much better than the watery sort of relief that seems to have taken residence in them.

So he'd died, so what? He is obviously alive now. So … so there shouldn't be a need for her to look at him like _that._

Naruto does feel some unease about the whole matter, after all, who wouldn't? (Especially since no one tells him outright, all walking on egg shells around him, breaths hushed in awe and fear. He is half-awake when he hears who he thinks are Kakashi and Tsunade hovering over him. "Will he be alright now?" This is Kakashi asking, he's fairly sure. Tsunade said; "I don't know anyone who's alright after death."). It's just that—and this is something he was loath to admit when he first awoke, first saw the old hag's face with an bolt of relief that left him a little choked—he doesn't really remember what happened all that well, so it's sort of surreal, like a dream or a joke or something happening to someone else.

Oh, he's pieced together the general picture, but it isn't complete. Not nearly. And no one seems to want to tell him anything. Like how they'd gotten Sasuke home (because, and he feels that he'd remember this even if nothing else ever again, he will always remember Sasuke, remember following him and trying to catch-up), and how their fight ended and how he'd died. And if he was dead, then how he ended up in a hospital bed.

But, to his annoyance, everyone (well, everyone that he is allowed to see which is surprisingly limited) just evades his questions, leaving him to crumbs of half-heard conversations and vaguely disturbing dreams.

Tsunade jabs at his stomach for his inattention to something she'd asked. Viciously.

"SHIT," he yelps, suddenly scrambling back from the older woman with wide eyes. "What was that for? I didn't do nothin' to _you._"

Tsunade ignores him with a faint twitch of lips, turning instead to Shizune-san. "Tenderness is going down, obviously; took more pressure to get a response this time."

Shizune nods and, smiling, marks the chart in her hands.

Naruto narrows his eyes. He should just go over there and—

"Oh, here," the Old Hag mutters with a start. She slides a hand to her neck and pulls his necklace from under her shirt. Naruto stares for a moment surprised that he hadn't already noticed its loss from his neck because since he got it he hasn't removed it, even for bathing. He _must_ have been dead then, a part of him murmurs in wonder, grudgingly starting to believe.

Tsunade slips it over his head, gripping his shoulders tightly for moment and sighing. Naruto isn't sure what he's suppose to say in this matter, but before he can figure out what to say to get her to release her (painfully) firm grasp, she leans back and flicks him in the forehead.

"Don't make me take that back again," she mutters sternly, blonde hair sliding over her shoulder, brown eyes strangely bright; strangely amber. "You hear me?"

Naruto nods. He certainly has no campaigns in the near future that include his death. And he plans on keeping it that way. Shizune looks a little misty-eyed. Naruto resists the urge to snort; girls, always so bloody _dramatic._

Girls; he wonders how Sakura is, because he hasn't seen her since before he left. And, obviously, because thinking of Sakura always leads to thinking of Sasuke, he wonders how Sasuke is, because the Uchiha is just the kind of idiot to not take care of himself, and just stubborn enough to resist when people are just acting _in his best interest,_ so he wonders if Sasuke is holed up in a room down the hall or already free to be the utter bastard he is again.

First though, he needs to answer Tsunade and get rid of that _look_ on her face. It's truly freaky.

"Right; will-do, so, yeah, ehrm," Naruto tries to keep a cheery, slightly bored look on his face because it wouldn't do to look overly eager, even _anxious,_ to find out about the prick. Not cool at all. Casual; casual is the key he thinks. "How's the other guy looking?"

Jokes normally make people laugh, and Naruto's always thought of himself as a bit of a funny guy.

The look on Tsunade's face is anything but funny.

The bottom of Naruto's stomach starts feeling a little tingly; like that time he'd eaten thirty bowls of ramen in one sitting just before he'd been sick all over Iruka-sensei's shirt, and unconsciously his hands form into fists on his thighs. Anxiety starts tickling the back of his neck and it's all he can do to keep from launching at the blonde Sannin to get some actual answers for once.

"Sasuke's well," the Godaime reassures him, though her face still looks like, well, the Hokage's. Naruto doesn't dwell on that though, and leaps at the chance for something concrete.

"Okay," he grins, feeling relieved and ignoring that voice in his head telling him that he should be worried instead. "So, when can I see him? Or is he already out? Ah man, you didn't release him before me, did you?"

"You can't see him right now Naruto, he can't have visitors." Tsunade says, a different strange tone a in her voice now. If Naruto didn't know any better he'd say that it was—

"Umm," his nose scrunches as he twists his face in thought. "Okay. So … When _can_ I see him then?"

"I don't know."

"Oh."

_What the hell—?_

Tsunade sighs heavily, and pulls a stool closer to the bed. She pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and looks like the start of a headache. For him, that is.

"See, what we haven't been able to talk to you about yet," she starts carefully. "Is how you ended up in here. What is the absolute last thing that you remember?" He eyes her, uncertain where the conversation is leading and whether or not he wants to go there.

"Sasuke charging his Chidori," he replies without hesitation, though he can still feel a bit of a sting at the fact that Kakashi had shared the technique with one of his students and not the other. "On top of a waterfall; him releasing his seal, I think. Or maybe not, but fighting with him definitely."

"Well, he killed you." Tsunade says bluntly, eyes steady on his face. Naruto blinks. Surely, he misheard …? "Kakashi came to find you and help you get Sasuke back to Konoha, but he says when he got there you were already dead and Sasuke was … Sasuke was not coherent."

What? _Coherent?_ Thoroughly confused, Naruto pushes a thatch of sunny hair out of his eyes and finds that one of his hands has been subconsciously tracing the faint scar across his belly; his stomach lurches.

_—For a horrifying moment, there is a flash of blue and yellow electricity, green where it melds together, and he feels water soaking his pant legs and blood his shirt and Sasuke is coming at him again, eyes wide red pinwheels—_

Tsunade is faster than him. Within seconds she has a cool hand on his shoulderblade and his forehead, which is suddenly slick with sweat, and a stainless steel container next to him as he retches. There is a burning sensation all throughout his abdomen, partly from remembered pain, partly from healing muscles, and partly from the forcible upheaval of his breakfast.

Against his will, a low moan sounds from his throat. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ That stupid _idiot—_

"Shhh, shhh," she murmurs, rubbing his back and threading a coolly comforting hand through his hair. Naruto heaves for a few more minutes before his body has nothing left to heave, and then Tsunade has him caught-up in her arms with a soothing rocking motion. "Shhh, it's alright. I've got you; I've got you this time."

* * *

Gaara leans against the stone railing of Sand's Main Palace, a placid scowl adorning his face. The Palace is no longer much of anything; a bad economy having striped the opulent rooms of their wealth for use in other areas, and numerous attacks from stronger hidden villages wearing away even the austere loveliness of the architecture. Gaara thinks that he can remember a time when the rooms had been thick with warm red light and incense, but he isn't sure if this is something that he remembers, or that Shukaku remembers.

_Little difference now boy._

Gaara doesn't respond to the voice in his head; hasn't for a while (_now that's not true,_ Shukaku corrects with unholy glee; _I'm hurt, my boy, cut to the core_). It's easier to keep a grip on his control if he ignores the little goads and taunts that the tanuki tosses at him. But even though he doesn't verbally respond to Shukaku, Gaara knows that the other is right. To an extent at least, he allows. He knows he never spent any time in the Palace during his youth except for when he was taken by the Research and Development teams for checkups and check-ins. He knows that Shukaku wasn't always trapped in a jar or his head. And then he wonders when he stopped being able to clearly separate Shukaku's voice from his own, and wonders if it isn't right when it whispers sibilantly in his ear that it was never separate, never anything less than his own.

"… Stupid fuck, _that's_ what he is," Kankurou's petulant voice drifts out to Gaara, continuing a conversation that started without him.

Shukaku snorts; _not like it would have started with you even if you had been there._

His siblings shut the door to their conjoined suite (his brother and sister's bedroom to the right, and his to the left, a sitting room hinging all three, and tiny, private water closets in each for a shower or shit), and Gaara can hear the soft rustle of Temari's tunic as she removes her gear.

"Regardless, he's still the Kazekage," she says, but Gaara can make out the sneer in her voice. Someone flings themselves bodily on the low moth-eaten settee closest to the balcony. Kankurou, he guesses (correctly, too) as it creaks. Temari is a lighter touch.

"Bullshit. Even _Baki_ would have made a better choice. That man is no more Kazekage than I am."

"And you're an actual son of the Kazekage, how sad." A mutual snicker resounds.

Gaara wonders for a moment what the Kazekage had said to incite the conversation—ignoring the fact that the man is an idiot and deserving of any ridicule—because he'd taken off the moment Temari had finished with the initial mission report. He assumes it has something to do with the Leaf (_fuck,_ everything _has to do with Leaf these days,_ Shukaku grumbles discontent,_ all the better reason to get rid of them; that would be some fun_) and wonders with some interest if they are going to be sent back to Konoha and the other boy, the one like-him-but-not.

"I still can't believe that idiot wants us to just sit here; we could be completing missions, we could be _helping,_ gods know Sand needs it right now."

"Look Kankurou, it's not our place to question the Kazekage—" ("It _should,_" his brother mutters sotto voce, and Gaara can't help but feel a stirring of agreement in his throat) "—and instead of complaining, why not just use this time to relax. Anyway, aren't you always muttering about there not being enough time to work on your karasu, right?"

Kankurou mumbles something unintelligible from where Gaara stands beyond the open windows.

"Whatever. His term will be up eventually; and remember, he's only the temporary Kazekage."

("Can they even _do_ that?" Kankurou had demanded months before, in the wake of their father's death, when Gin had first taken the position. "Not really," Temari had shrugged, "But desperate times, you know? Sand needs a leader, and Gin is well received in the business community. And, anyway, they've limited the time he can serve as Kazekage; he's it for two years, or until they find the proper person.")

"Not like it's all that different from before," Kankurou mutters resentfully. "Not like there's been a _real_ Kazekage since before Mom died."

Gaara knows that Temari is probably smothering Kankurou's mouth with a hand about now, eyes wide and fearful as they wait for the first trickle of sand to fill the room. He knows that they are thinking _oh shit oh damn he's out there isn't he, he heard didn't he, oh hell what's he going to do now?_ He knows because this has happened before and it ended all rather messily.

_We should rough them up a bit,_ Shukaku counsels. _Teach them a lesson._

We should, he muses idly. Gaara glares up at the whiteblue sky tapering into the horizon beyond the city, feels the warm dry wind tug at his skin, and momentarily recalls the moist air of Leaf and how the fresh scent of earth was always thick in it. He wonders if that woman has fixed the fox yet, because the boy isn't any good to him the way he was.

Many minutes later he can hear his siblings moving around again. The door to Temari's room opens and shuts; seeing as nothing happened (and if nothing's happened yet it's fairly safe to assume that nothing will for a while if at all) she's retreated for the semi-sanctity of her bedroom.

_You,_ Shukaku sneers; _are getting soft._

Ignoring Shukaku (which is starting to cause a bit of a heavy throbbing behind his eyes, like the tanuki is pounding pounding POUNDING away with a sledgehammer in his attempt to get out), Gaara prowls back into the soft coolness of their quarters to escape from the High Noon sun and the start of his headache. Kankurou is belly down on a pile of thread-bare pillows, tinkering with his with one of his puppets, hood thrown back to reveal his own thatch of unruly auburn hair; something both he and his brother inherited from their father.

Their stupid fucking father.

Unreasonably, a bolt of hatred darts through his chest, squeezing air from his lungs and anger onto his tongue. With Shukaku cackling quietly at the back of his head, Gaara strides to stand, to _loom,_ at Kankurou's shoulder. His nostrils flare as he takes in the scent of fear emanating from the older boy as he goes … absolutely … still.

_Fear and death and more fear; that's all it will ever be for you, for us,_ Shukaku murmurs dreamily, slinking heavy invisible arms around his soul. _Death and more death; death until there is no more death then there will be nothing. _

A slender thread of sand weaves its way across Kankurou's back to encircle his brother's neck, granules undulating in time with the pulse of Gaara's blood. His fingers twitch and the noose tightens, tightens inch by inch until the surrounding flesh is mottled purple and Kankurou's eyes are rolling white.

_Until it's just you, you and me and the sand._

Abruptly, Gaara rocks back on his heels and the sand loosens and dissolves. Kankurou sputters and chokes as he tries to regain the air he lost, chest heaving frantically, and Gaara feels disgust creep up his throat at how fragile his brother is, how _mortal._

It isn't fair.

Turning on his heel Gaara goes to his room, slams the door, and with a sharp motion throws open the valances he'd had transferred from the bed to hang over the latticework covering the window. It's a simple matter then for him to slip from his window to a neighboring rooftop. As he jumps, sand following his feet like misshapen wings, he hears Temari's door bang open, hears her worried questions; hears Kankurou's strangled answers.

_Just you and me and the sand and nothing. _

Ku, ku, ku; I can't wait.

* * *

"Kabuto!"

Kabuto removes his spectacles and pinches the bridge of his nose while the beginnings of a headache bloom behind his eyes. To reign in his temper, he counts the number of poisons that make a man die from the feet up (five and oh; he remembers that he needs to send someone, maybe Ito or Fuuma—though the boy is absolutely useless without Kaori at his side—to get more wormwood and cyanide because his stores are getting low), and the number of constellations in the southern hemisphere (more than he can remember—he should ask Kanaka, later, for a brush-up) and reminds himself that Orochimaru-dono is always a little impetuous (undone, neurotic; _insane_) for the first few weeks after a transfer. Something about grappling with the vessel's residual memories, personality, _something,_ while making sure that his didn't get lost or diminished.

A loud crash echoes in the room he just left; the sound of glass and mortar and stone breaking into thousands of pieces while his Lord rants.

"Now, now, _now_; get him for me now."

Another mirror to be replaced, another monitor to be repaired; Kabuto has lost count of the damage Orochimaru has inflicted upon his rooms in the past two weeks. If he were any less of a patient man, he thinks he might have had a few fits of his own.

Instead, he readies a hypodermic syringe and a sedative.

"Kabuto."

"Yes, yes, I'm coming."

_"Kabuto."_

Clenching his teeth Kabuto thinks of the village, thinks of the Sound, his _home,_ and how he is helping them. Kabuto relaxes a jaw slowly. "I'm here, sir, I'm coming."

_"Kabuto!"_

He winces as another (very) loud crash sounds, and hurriedly finishes loading the medical tray with a new packet of latex gloves and some sterile wipes. Pasting a soothing smile on his face (one birthed from years of pandering to the unwisely benevolent regime of the Third) he rolls his slender silver cart into Orochimaru's sitting room, carefully avoiding shatter bits of ceramics, and bows deeply.

"Sorry, sir, for the long wait; I was just preparing your painkillers."

The bandages had been gotten rid of several days into the coalescence of Orochimaru's mind and the vessel's body, though the skin still looks melted in some places, like around the ears and wrists. Kabuto has found that this is a side affect of the fusion that will pass in due time and he wonders what his master would ever do should it cause permanent damage to the body. _Just change it again I suppose,_ he muses sliding his hands into thin blue rubber. _What a waste._

For Orochimaru, as Kabuto has found in his years of service, the aesthetic is nearly just as important as the functionality of a body. And (he thinks privately) that's a large part why the Uchiha boy is so important to him; he has the whole lovely and deadly thing down pat. It must also help, he thinks, that the boy has the Sharingan. What with the whole wanting to learn every jutsu and all.

This is usually the most difficult part of Orochimaru's re-integration with the flesh; being as vain as he is, he will only allow Kabuto to see him, to deal with him, until he's whole again. Kabuto feels thankful that he had been far too busy in the past being a spy in Konoha for the most part to have been subjected to more than two or three of Orochimaru's changes.

"Now," he says briskly, only slightly disconcerted by the shockingly pale hair hanging over those familiar canted eyes (he supposes the old adage must be true that gentlemen prefer blondes, because Orochimaru is certainly not a gentleman. He doesn't think he's ever seen Orochimaru as anything other than a brunet), pulling back the sleeve of his robe. "This dose is a little stronger than usual because this host seems to have a bit of a tolerance for such things." _And I need you to be as tranquil as possible until you've regained a bit of sanity,_ though he didn't add the last aloud.

Eyes burning hotter than coals, Orochimaru jerks his arm from Kabuto's grasp and paces jerkily, still somewhat unused to this new body's movement patterns.

"I want you to bring him to me now," he hisses. A fleck of spittle lands on the younger man's glasses. "You hear me? _Now._"

"Well, yes, I absolutely would," Kabuto says gently. "But first you need to heal. And the boy isn't going to be going anywhere right now; he's under lock and key."

"No! No, not him, not yet—no use for him yet. The _other_ one."

Kabuto is a pragmatic man. Always has been. Taking off his spectacles to clean them, he hums a half-forgotten melody caught in his head (_I need to speak with Matsudo about fixing the wireless,_ he thinks to himself absently). Orochimaru, obviously, is talking about Uzumaki-kun. It always surprises him how much the lad is overlooked only to be re-evaluated as something special after-the-fact; with a smug twinge of pride, he knows that he'd recognized the spark of something great from the beginning. Unlike the Uchiha boy, Uzumaki—like himself, to an extent—will outstrip whatever restrictions are placed upon him if only by sheer perversity.

A boy with a cursed seal, doomed to limited immortality, and a boy with a seal, doomed to live forever with a demon—

An idea dawns in Kabuto's mind that unsettles him. Disturbed, he pushes it into a pigeonhole deep in his mind and tries to redirect his master's attention.

"Sir, Orochimaru-dono, you _must_ take it easy. We will get you want ever you want, whoever you want, but first you must be in full health." He coaxes the man back to a chair, murmuring platitudes.

It then takes Kabuto little less than an hour to finish his exam and pump Orochimaru full of sedatives. Once certain he's asleep, Kabuto releases a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in. The promise of a headache he'd felt earlier has been fulfilled and all Kabuto wants is to is retreat to a dark, quiet room with a flask of brandy (even though he knows that it is hell on his liver, a man must be allowed some vices).

He makes sure, of course, that Orochimaru never learns of this. Kabuto knows it's his cool chrome façade that keeps him alive; should Orochimaru learn of a too glaring flaw in his coating then, well, everyone is expendable.

Instead, however, Kabuto tidies his workroom before heading down to the aptly titled War Room, nodding genially to the young man organizing the assorted maps covering the large table dominating the center of the room. The boy nods his head, but doesn't move. Kabuto watches him for a moment, trying to place the boy's face. He's sure Kanaka would have told him if she were assigning a new aide—especially since all of his seem to be dying of late. Yes, Kabuto needs to have a chat with the woman.

"I don't think I've seen you before," Kabuto muses, eyeing the long stretch of the lad's neck. He's a pretty little thing, but far too frail-looking for a proper shinobi

"No."

Well then; blunt and dismissive, and entirely too rude. He will _definitely_ need to have a chat with Kanaka; her rod seems to be softening if her staff can get away with this sort of insubordination. Frowning he taps three fingers along his jaw. "Name boy?"

"Tate." He looks up, gracing Kabuto with a pretty, surly, blue gaze (not near as nice as Uzumaki-kun's, though, he appraises silently) set in a face too narrow for true loveliness. _Doesn't look too bright either,_ he considers. Like a cow; healthy and dumb, and no loss to anyone should something untoward happen. And he is working on some new poisons; he needs to try out those new senbons on _something … _

"Hmm."

"Was there something else?" Tate asks brusquely after several minutes of silence pass, seemingly annoyed at having his attention diverted from his task. Kabuto commends him on his focus, though entirely misplaced.

"Have you seen Ito-san around, or better yet, Kanaka-san?"

"No."

"Ah, I see. Very enlightening." Unfortunately, Kabuto feels his sarcasm missed its mark. _Oh well._ "In any case, should you see either please let them know that Kabuto is looking for them?"

Tate pales a little; "Of course sir."

Maybe not quite so stupid then, Kabuto thinks with a small grin. He's at the door when he turns abruptly, smiling widely.

"Oh and Tate, was it? Head to my labs in, oh, about an hour or so; I have some … things I'll need your assistance with."

Kabuto leaves without waiting for a reply, breaking into a cheery whistle. _The promise of a little torture does wonders for one's spirit,_ Kabuto hums happily. Quickly making his way to the other end of the hall, he pokes his head inside the Library. It's one of his favorite places in all of Sound, because despite being maybe only a fifth of the size of the one in Leaf, it holds more rare contraband tomes then the entirety of the Fire Country. He scans the room quickly, looking for the dark head of hair of his Chief of Staff and not finding her.

_Drat that woman._ Kabuto scowls, pulling himself back to lean against the doorframe. It figures that when he actually needs something from someone, they're no where too be found. And after all he does for his village, too.

"You are going to single-handedly divest Sound of able-bodied workers, you know that?"

Kabuto laughs, twisting his head round to look back at the dour face of Kanaka. "Why there you are! I was just looking for you."

"I know. You've scared Tate out of his mind. I imagine with good reason as well."

"You have absolutely no sense of humor."

"Was there a particular reason you were looking for me?"

Kabuto pouts; "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get rid of me Kanaka-chan. I'm hurt."

Kanaka's face, if possible, becomes even darker. Her thick mop of dark hair has been tugged back into a tight knot low on her nape; a look Kabuto has always felt makes her darkly tanned features appear harsher than they actually are. "I'm busy. Unlike some people, I can't take off for days at a time. Fuck man, where were you?"

"Oh, so you're saying you missed me. Ah, I'm touched—"

"In the fucking _head_; what do you want Kabuto?"

His earlier good cheer dissolving, Kabuto straightens as his earlier headache reminds him of its presence. He always forgets just how thorny dealing with Kanaka is until he's actually speaking with her again. If she weren't so very good at her job he would look for someone else.

"Now that's not a very nice way to speak to a _superior,_ is it Kanaka-chan?" He rebukes gently, letting his voice drip with all the soft menace he's capable of. To her credit, Kanaka blanches and executes a shallow bow.

"Of course, Kabuto-sama. I … forgot myself for a moment. Is Orochimaru-dono resting more soundly?"

"Yes, yes. He's sleeping."

"Good. He had trouble … _resting_ the few days you were gone."

"That was certainly unfortunate timing, but necessary." Kanaka gives a derisive snort. Kabuto knows from experience that Orochimaru can certainly be unreasonable when he feels he is not getting what he wants, when he wants. Speaking of which …

"Kanaka-chan," Kabuto begins, not bothering to hide his slightly troubled look. "While he was under your care, he did talk about bringing both boys here? Both the Uchiha vessel and his teammate?"

If the woman is surprised, she hides it well and simply shrugs. "Yes. I didn't rightly understand all of it, but he seemed to be talking about some kind of possession, or something. I passed it off as hallucinations."

"Hmm."

"But it wasn't, was it?"

"Hmm."

Kanaka growls, dragging claw-like fingers across her fierce face. "_Damnit_; he's going to do something dangerous, isn't he? He's going to put Sound at risk again, isn't he? What is he looking for?"

"Immortality."

"But he's _got_ that already—"

"No, no. He's figured out how to not die, not how to become immortal." Kabuto rubs a thumb over his chin. "He told me once that he thought maybe the Fourth had succeeded, but he didn't elaborate much."

The dark-haired kunoichi stares at him for a moment, and Kabuto can see the gears spinning behind her dark gaze. "Everything's got to do with the fucking Leaf in the end, doesn't it?"

"And Sand, to an extent."

"The Sand?"

"Kanaka-chan, where did you think I had gone? You know I've always got the best interests of Sound at heart."

"An alliance then? I thought the new Kazekage was straight, clean."

"He is, but the Akatsuki stationed there aren't."

While they talked, Kabuto had slowly maneuvered the woman down the corridor and towards the one of the offices on the floor for a bit of privacy. The offices are serving as a storage room for their odds and ends while Sound was being re-organized lately though, Kabuto considers with a faint grimace, Orochimaru's machinations have nearly stripped the village of all the meager wealth it'd managed to accumulate over the several years of its brief existence. For a moment, Kabuto feels a twist of anger in his gut; how dare the man risk everything he'd created, everything they'd all worked so hard to make, simply for his mad quest?

Once in the shabby room, Kanaka crosses her arms across her chest and leans her hip on the desk piled with boxes in the middle of the floor. In the thin afternoon sunlight streaming through the window her heritage as a child of the Earth country really shows. While Kanaka is not pretty, not even remotely so (pretty implying something soft and curved and gentle), her face is highboned—long straight nose, deep wideset eyes, high cheeked, even-browed; darkly aristocratic.

It's a pity—Kabuto thinks—that she hasn't the physical force to back up her will. If she did, she'd surely be someone to reckon with.

"So you were talking to the Akatsuki," she mutters, sounding a like she'd bitten into something sour. "Again."

Kabuto leans against the door and waves his hand dismissively. "Now, now; just because we left them on an unpleasant note doesn't mean that they can't be of help to us on occasion."

"Both of you are going to decimate Sound," Kanaka snaps before adding (clearly as an after thought), "_Sir_."

"Don't say it if you don't mean it Kanaka-chan," Kabuto drawls mildly. "Besides, Itachi—beloved little psychopath that he is—isn't the type of man to hold a grudge. He'll either kill you for something, or he won't. He clearly hasn't killed me yet, so unless something unforeseen happens in the next little while, I think we'll be fine."

"You're talking to _Itachi_? Fuck, Kabuto, don't you remember that Orochimaru tried to _possess_ him? Don't you remember _why_ Orochimaru-dono left them in the first place?" She buries her face in her hands, groaning. "He'll destroy us. He will."

"He tried, but he didn't—"

"Only because the little brother showed up—"

Kabuto frowns. "_Because_ he realized that meshing with someone so unstable was asking for trouble. Really, Kanaka-chan, you talk like you don't trust Orochimaru-dono anymore."

Kanaka's hesitation is answer enough. Kabuto quickly schools his features into something neutral. While he may not … _entirely_ … agree, Orochimaru is the man who gave him a life, a home, a _family_, when he had none and deserves his loyalty, deserves all of Sound's loyalty.

Kanaka stands, letting her arms fall limply to her sides, palms open. "Look, Kabuto, he's getting _worse_. He's losing all his sense of reason in this search for something that shouldn't exist. He's not the same man who founded Sound. Even you have to see it."

Kabuto moves quickly, more quickly than he knows Kanaka can follow. In an instant he has her forced on her knees, on arm twisted and pinned high on her back, crushing her wrist, while he wraps the other firmly in her hair. The texture is courser than it looks. Kanaka holds completely still; Kabuto can hear her biting back a shriek. Part of him feels a little shamed that he's hurting her—he's known her for so long and he's never lain a hand on her before—but the larger part of him is directing him to nip this budding insurrection at the source with no remorse.

Using her hair as leverage, he pulls her head back. He pulls it back so far that her spine bows like the soft curve of a bow; tears dot the corners of her lashes.

"Orochimaru-dono is the leader of this village," he murmurs genially. His grip on her wrist tightens; he can feel the fragile bones of her hand stiffening from the tension and applies a bit more pressure on the space between the pisiform bone and the slight hook of the hamulus, effectively blocking the flow of her artery and her ulnar nerve. Kanaka gives a small whimper. "I follow Orochimaru-dono; I am his aide and his red right hand. It would be best to remember that."

Kabuto releases her suddenly and, lacking the support that had kept her upright, she collapses, cradling her hand to her chest. Scraps of her dark hair have fallen loose around her face; Kanaka looks more undone than Kabuto can ever remember seeing her. A twinge of something—possibly guilt, though he highly doubts it because guilt is one of those things reserved for those with a conscience—darts through his chest and he resists the urge to help her up. He pretends not to see the somewhat betrayed look in her eyes.

At the door, though, he pauses. "Everything I do is for Sound. _Everything._ And you may want someone to take a look at that hand; I think I fractured your metacarpal."

It's only when he's at the door to his lab that he remembers he forgot to ask Kanaka to send Ito on a shopping trip, and he chuckles a little. Judging by the light, about an hour has passed. Deciding he'll just have to send someone later, he smiles indulgently; he has a bit of lab work to do.

"Ah, Tate-kun, you're already here; good, good. Now, if you'd just have a seat …"

**

* * *

**

**Notes:**

(1) First off, I found the quote in an old textbook of mine and the foot note goes as this:

'...from _"Descendit ad infernos"_ (He Descends to the Underworld), a chapter for Alfred Jarry's _La Dragonne_ (1943), quoted in Roger Shattuck's _The Banqueet Years: The Arts in France, 1885-1918_ (1955). The clause is immediately preceeding the section quoted is; "But soon he could drink no more ..."'

So, for anyone looking for the direct source of the lines, there you go.

(2) For a more acurate idea of the bones Kabuto mentions, check out (http:www . dartmouth . edu/ anatomy/w rist-hand /bones /bones5. html) because my knowledge of human bonestructure is limited to my dusty Bio12 and the internet.

(3) I'm going to say this right up front, I am _not_ happy with the chapter overall. However, because I just need to get this damned thing done, I'm letting this one go. I'll maybe, probably, be coming back to it to revamp it, just not right away.


End file.
